Wallpaper, textiles made the old fashioned way locally

Jan. 12—In the place where Otsego and Schoharie counties meet, skilled craftspeople have built businesses creating reproductions of wallpaper and textiles — making them the old fashioned way, preserving the traditions of their trade.

The artisans at Adelphi Paper Hangings in Sharon Springs and tradespeople at Thistle Hill Weavers in Cherry Valley produce works of functional art that are in demand all over the world — from historic homes and museums to movie sets and Disney theme parks.

Wallpaper

Adelphi was founded by Steve Larson and Chris Ohrstrom in 1999. Larson developed years of experience demonstrating at the Farmers' Museum in Cooperstown how wallpaper was once exclusively made from block printed cotton paper.

He also visited France several times with Wendy Weeks, an interpreter at the Farmers' Museum, to talk with block printers there.

Larson, a Seattle native who moved to upstate New York in 1987 after some time in New York City, said Wednesday, Jan. 10 that Ohrstrom was instrumental in starting the business, providing valuable insight and expertise.

The patterns the shop offers are reproductions from American, English and French patterns, mostly from the 18th and 19th centuries and into the early 20th century.

Larson said that block printing was used exclusively until the 1840s and replaced by machine printing.

Most of the time, the prints at Adelphi are done on standard continuous rolls of paper.

For historic installations, they glue sheets together to form a roll since wallpaper originally came in sheets before the advent of continuous paper.

The horizontal seem that is created, as well as the traditional adhesive used to glue the sheets together — rabbit-skin glue — adds to the historical accuracy sought after by historic sites and institutions, Larson said.

Many of the shop's clients are designers who order through showrooms located throughout the county as well as overseas.

Other clients are private individuals, and the shop draws many institutional clients, including Old Sturbridge Village, Thomas Jefferson's home of Monticello and James Madison's home of Montpelier.

They mix their own paints in-house to achieve the desired colors, using a modified version of the traditional paint.

Some designs use two to four printed colors, while others have up to 10 or even 20 printed colors, which can affect printing time and cost.

Historic documents and old wallpaper samples — often faded, water-stained fragments pulled off of walls in layers — provide the original designs to create block prints for the patterns.

The reproduced patterns are drawn onto acetate sheets which are then scanned and sent to a laser engraving company to create wooden blocks for printing.

The traditional printing technique uses a hand-operated press. The printer stamps the block with paint and lines up the pattern using registration pins along the edge of the block.

A foot pedal transfers the pressure up and then down through the arm. A half-circle tool called the bridge is used to apply pressure in different places. The long sheets are hung from a drying rack mounted to the ceiling.

Printer Jenn Hanford, of Middleburg, is one of six employees and has been working at the shop for 22 years, drawn to the job from her print-making experience in college.

"It's such a great job," she said. "Why would I go anywhere else?"

About a 10 minute drive from Adelphi is the workshop of Rabbit Goody, Thistle Hill Weavers.

Her mill specializes in reproducing historical fabrics from the 17th through 19th centuries for designers, the film industry, private clients and historic homes, including Hyde Hall, the Emily Dickinson Museum and Valley Forge National Historic Museum.

Goody, along with seven employees, produce the custom and commission woven textiles in natural fibers, synthetics and metallics on a collection of looms that came from area mills that have closed down.

For custom work, the shop uses its own yarn and performs the service of weaving. In commission work, clients provide the shop with their own yarn and commission the shop to do the work of weaving, she said.

Her services go beyond creating the fabrics — carpets, upholstery, drapery, curtains, trims, as well as for clothing and costumes — and include on-site consultations, research and installation.

Originally from New Jersey, Goody has lived in various parts of New England and has been in Cherry Valley for almost 50 years.

A self-described "original hippie," she said she became interested in weaving as part of an interest in growing her own food, building her own home and making her own clothes.

She started with just a simple book, and it just all made sense, she said.

"I've had some various teachers and mentors," she said, "but to some degree, my ability to do weaving and spinning is much like somebody who can pick up a musical instrument and play it. It came pretty naturally to me."

She served an an apprenticeship at Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut, in the weave shop.

Through the years, she has become an internationally known expert in weaving, teaching and giving lectures.

"There are probably only two or three custom mills left in the United States," Goody said. "Many of them are larger than we are, and in that sense their minimum yardage is much, much higher than ours, so we're very expensive."

That means her shop has the flexibility to take on jobs that nobody else would — little jobs like the window shades for a 1960s railroad car.

"We'll do a run as short as 18 or 20 yards of fabric, which no mill in their right mind would do," she said, "or we'll even do it by hand and not on these machines that's five yards."

On Wednesday, shop workers Raina Roe and Crystal Wack were using a tenter frame, which stretches fabric to make sure it dries at is full width, on a fabric created in the shop destined to become a Jedi robe for "Star Wars" character Ahsoka in one of the Disney parks.

"I don't know that this particular shop, when I decide to end, it will continue," she said, "but I do thing that part of my job is to keep people employed. I'm a strong believer that that's part of my responsibility, so I have no intention of stopping sure any time soon."