Saturday, April 28, 2012

vintage embroidery pattern IDs - unknown!

* For my last trick, I'm posting scans of patterns that were either a) in an envelope with no identification; b) in the wrong envelope; or c) in a grab bag.

Mystery 1
dark blue dotted lines on white tissue paper. One sheet of designs has a Canadian flag, maple leaves, and "1867-1967" so that dates the pattern set. There are 16 sheets of designs in the envelope, and they all look the same, but I don't know if they all originally came in this envelope.
Mystery envelope:
No manufacturer or newspaper name listed on the envelope.

Sample designs:
Some designs in the envelope have 3 digit numbers on the bottom.
Some designs in the envelope have 5 digit numbers.

Mystery 2
red solid lines on white paper.
Number on mystery design:

ID on mystery design:

Mystery 3
dark blue lines on white tissue paper. The design is labeled "Fleetway" but I can't find a single thing on the internets about Fleetway and embroidery.

If anyone has any info on the above designs, please let me know!


this just in: I bought a Laura Wheeler Design (newspaper mailorder) from 1941 in a thrift store upisland - will be adding to the design id chart soon!

Friday, April 20, 2012

vintage embroidery pattern ID - Walker's

Here we are at the last of the known hot iron transfers! 
There's hardly any info on Walker's Hot Iron Transfers, and it doesn't help that there's a moving company called Walker, and a machine embroidery shop in California with the name. Walker's also has different numbers on the outside of the envelope and the transfer sheet on the inside. 
I have four different envelopes but no dates, so I'm putting them in serial number order.

Walker's The Original Transfer Pattern No. 54 (serial number 1749) - dark blue dotted lines on brown tissue paper.
Envelope:

Text on transfer sheet:
top of sheet
bottom of sheet

Walker's Hot Iron Transfer Patterns No. 922 (serial number 1862) - dark blue dotted lines on brown tissue paper
Envelope:

Text on transfer sheet: 


Walker's The Original Transfer Pattern No. 54 (serial number 1749) - dark blue dotted lines on brown tissue paper. 
Envelope:


Text on transfer sheet is exactly as no. 1862.


Walker's For Attractive Embroidery No. 702 (serial number 2002) - dark blue solid lines on brown tissue paper. 
Envelope:


Text on transfer sheet is exactly as no. 1862.

Next time - transfers from unknown/unmarked companies!

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Vintage embroidery pattern ID - Vogart

There's tons of info out there about Vogart, because they seem to have been the most prolific of the hot iron transfer companies. They are out of business, but the copyright is owned by Plaid Enterprises. Sadly, Plaid does not nor do they have any plans to reissue the patterns, but they doggedly protect their copyright just the same. So, no public sharing of Vogart patterns unless you want to hear from a lawyer. I do believe sharing envelope images is okay, though. (and I'm assuming that sharing portions of designs for the purposes of identification is also okay - if not, Lawyers, please tell me and I'll remove them.)
Some patterns will have more than one number since designs were reprinted and rereleased under a different number. I have pattern sets with three different envelopes, but I'm not sure of the dates of any of them.

Vogart Transfer Pattern 147 - light blue solid lines on brown tissue paper
Envelope:

Text on transfer sheet:


Vogart Repeat Transfer Patterns 696 - dark purple solid lines on white paper
Envelope:

Pattern number on transfer sheet:
I love the kittens.

Instructions on transfer sheet:


Vogart Repeat Transfer Patterns 706 - blue solid lines on white paper
Envelope:

Text on transfer sheet:
I have my suspicions that this last pattern sheet isn't the original one. 
  • the pattern lines are not solid solid, they are blurred and look as though some of the ink has flaked off. Common enough, but
  • there's no ink dust in the envelope as if the ink had flaked off.
  • there's no accidental transfer of pattern ink where the sheet has been folded.
  • the pattern number is handwritten, and not in the usual place (above Made in USA).
However, the patterns are all on one large sheet, and it is folded in the usual manner, so it may be a case of Vogart changing the way they printed their patterns. I won't know for sure until I either see another version of this pattern, or another pattern from this era.

Next time - 4 examples of Walker's!