One of our favorite fabrics is
the Pink Toile Venice Fabric
Years ago I saw this fabric on a buying trip, and tracked down the manufacturer.
And, we started carrying it. And, like all fabrics, it eventually was dropped by the company, as they moved on to different things.
At that point, we bought all remaining stock. The company we bought it from was in flux, and, about the time we ran out of The Venice, as we call it, the company was being acquired by another company.
We started talking with the new company, about running it. They had no desire to carry it, so they were fine with us doing so.
The original fabric was printed with rotary screens. But, the screens had been lost or destroyed when the original company dropped production of the fabric. And, the person who had done the set up for the printing was no longer with the company either.
Back then screens cost about $800.00 per screen. And, the original fabric had eight colors- so $8000.00 in the screens alone.
At this time the actual fabric industry was moving toward digital printing. So, we enquired about getting it done digitally. This would mean a smaller print run, with less inventory.
Sounds good, right? Ha!
The process is not simple when one is taking an existing screen printed fabric and having it reworked as a digital print. The art work has to be shipped to the company doing the printing. That part is easy. But, getting the colors even close is really hard. Dyes and inks are not the same! In and done it was well over a year before we were able to finalize the coloring and ground cloth. And, then it needed to be printed, and shipped… another twelve weeks.
But, it was worth it.
We love this pattern!
It is unique, colorful, and fun.
And, it has a good ground cloth.
I like the juxtaposition of the background toile
with the colored scene.
It has lots of nice details as well…
the restaurant on the quay,
the boats tied up near the canal steps,
and all the small details.
My favorite detail is
the laundry hanging from the windows!
We recently reran this,
so have plenty of stock.
And, while we do have two other Venice patterns,
this is the one that speaks to people the most.
See all three of the
Venice Fabrics in the
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