silks and flowers

with halloween and costume making behind me, i finally found time to actually look at what i bought at the country living fair. any guess what these lovelies are? they are about the size of a business card and the flowers are printed onto silk. still don't know - well, neither did i.

i spent a lot of time picking out the flowers i liked and was thinking i could use them in some collage pieces. they were priced at $1.75 a piece, but i got them down to 4 for $5, or i should say my friend joy did since i am a wimp with price negotiations. i know exactly what i want to pay for things, but i don't like asking:) anyway, when i paid for them, the booth owner let me know that they were called "cigarette silks". she said that around the turn of the century, these printed silks were included in cigar packages. wives and daughters would then take these silks and use them as embellishments to their sewn pillows or quilts. how cool is that???

after a quick etsy search, it turns out these images are quite collectible. they come in all types of subject matter, even some that are pretty risqué, especially for the time period. i also found out that $1.25 each was not a bad price to pay at all. score for me!