A Window into the Past

Schuyler Mansion in Albany, NY. Photo by Rabbit Goody.

BY SOPHIA BENNETT

Thistle Hill Weavers in Cherry Valley, NY, owned by renowned textile historian Rabbit Goody, has built a niche weaving cloth that is perfect for older homes, museums and 21st-century clothing designers. “We work more like the 18th- and 19th-century weavers who were jobbers,” she says, where people could bring small, specific manufacturing projects that fit a certain need. Besides supplying textiles to tradespeople, Goody has put her deep knowledge of traditional styles and décor to work by designing and installing historically accurate window treatments—something she has done for private homes as well as some of the country’s most famous monuments for the last 30 years.

In the Beginning…

Goody was part of the “back to the land” movement that took off in the 1970s. She moved to upstate New York intending to build her own house, grow her own food and make her own clothes. She quickly developed a talent for spinning and weaving. “It’s something I describe as innate,” she says. “The same way some people can pick up a musical instrument and play without a lot of formal training, I was able to do that with weaving.”

In addition to making cloth for her own clothes, Goody had a line of high-end wool and silk scarves she sold to major department stores. She did all of the work by hand—something she hid from her clients because she feared they would question her ability to keep up with production. She had her own worries about whether she would be able to continue to run a viable business based solely on her body’s ability to sit at a loom for hours at a time.

She put those worries—and the business—on hold to work as the head of the weaving department at The Farmers’ Museum in New York. She later became its head of domestic arts and assistant curator of textiles, then moved to the now-closed New York State Historical Association, where she was the curator of textiles. By the late 1980s, she was ready to stop managing old textiles and go back to making new ones. This time, though, she had a different business model in mind. Mills in New England were going out of business because they could no longer compete in the international market. But Goody believed there was a place for someone who could do small-batch, specialized production. She started acquiring equipment from the defunct mills, and Thistle Hill Weavers was born.

Today, her clients include the film industry, architectural firms, clothing designers and local sheep farmers looking to have their wool turned into value-added products. The mill works mostly with natural materials such as hemp, mohair, silk, worsted, alpaca or exotic fibers (although its architectural clients are more likely to specify products made from synthetic fibers). Goody also works with several clothing designers who are looking for eco-friendly fabrics that are hard to find elsewhere.

Designing Historically Accurate Window Treatments

For historic projects, Goody’s work often goes beyond just making

fabric. She may do the research, design and even the installation of curtains or bed hangings in older homes or museums. “We use historic texts that were published in the period for the designs,” she says. (See sidebar below for some of her favorites.) “We have to imagine people’s taste, but we don’t have to imagine people’s styles from that period.”

The first question she asks any client isn’t the age of the house or where it’s located, but the economic standard of the original occupant. “Was this person the wealthiest person in the neighborhood? Were they middle class? What did they do for a living? Were they aristocratic? The clothes make the person, but the window treatments make a statement about the house. That was how people identified their status in the past.” She’ll even dig into old probate records to get a sense of what types of things the family spent their money on, including how much they invested in home furnishings. With all of that information, she’ll finally start thinking about the types of fabrics to use. “Often, we send a variety of samples to clients and we say, ‘Here are things we’ve done. Where does this fit for you and what colorways are you thinking of?’” From there, they can start to make decisions about the specific needs for that home.

After that, Goody considers what is appropriate for the home’s architectural style, when it was built and the type of room. (The drapes for a formal parlor, for example, may require a different level of sophistication than those for a bedroom.) If there’s documentation about the types of curtains and valances that existed in the home, that will also influence her thinking about what to recommend. Besides her ability to create historically accurate fabrics, Goody differentiates her design work by paying close attention to trims and finishes. “The trims are actually more important than the fabric or the style,” she says. “The way people used to talk about it with bed hangings is that the fabric costs pennies, the trims cost shillings, and the tassels and tiebacks cost pounds. That’s still true today. And what makes an 18th-century window treatment work is the trims and finishes more than the style.”

Goody’s fabric and design work can be seen in George Washington’s Mount Vernon near Washington, D.C.; Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s manse in Virginia; the home at the Martin Van Buren National Historic Site near Kinderhook, NY; and Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace in Kentucky. Get more information about Thistle Hill Weavers at thistlehillweavers.com. V

She also encourages her clients to make sure whatever window treatments they choose fit with their own taste. People often think they need to create a perfect replica of the previous owner’s treatments to keep the house historically accurate. But it’s important not to confuse style and taste, she says. “Your taste is your taste, and you need to let your taste be what you get. Don’t feel compelled to look at other historic houses. You need to make the house your own and not feel guilty about it. That’s the mistake curators make all the time. We can’t know exactly what the window treatments looked like in the past. We can only know what the style was.”

BOOKS ON HISTORIC HOME DESIGN

“Authentic Décor: The Domestic Interior 16201920” by Peter Thornton

“Capricious Fancy: Draping and Curtaining the Historic Interior, 1800-1930” by Gail Caskey Winkler

“Soft Furnishings: 1830-1930” by Elizabeth Wright and James Broadbent