Finding A Place for Cherished Toile Fabric

Fabric speaks to me.  My mother and I picked out the toile fabric several years ago.  She made pillows, recovered a chair and made drapes with coordinating material.  Since my mom is ninety years old she will not be sewing a new set.  So i wanted to keep something to remember her by.  I also shopped for another toile and didn't see one I liked better.

My mom and I  found this chair at an estate sale with cane sides and curved legs, very French.  It is sooo comfortable our cat, Crystal loved to curl up in it.  The chair was saved in the flood so it was a sign to keep it.  My son called it the people fabric.  Every toile tells a story.  The story seems to be about a husband and wife working in fields for survival.  The wife watered the plants in her lovely garden and the husband plowed crops to sell and eat.   Life a hundred years ago was mostly rural.  Husband and wife worked as a team to provide food on the table and sell what was left over.  My mom grew up on a farm in rural Oklahoma and remembers what it was like to grab eggs from the underbelly of a chicken.  It  wasn't romantic at all because the chickens pecked at her.  But it was her job and she did it.  She watched her mother ring the necks of chickens for Sunday dinner.  The toile is a reminder of rural America.

I purchased the book, Country French Living by Charles Faudree to educate me about French design.  As I was thumbing the pages I couldn't believe my eyes.  The same fabric was on page 123 in Charles book.  In fact it was displayed at the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority at the University of Oklahoma.  The same University my elder son was attending.  It's a small world.