Thursday 4 November 2010

turning toile on its head


I had been looking for a pretty toile de jouy design to add to my fabric and wallpaper range for ages. So I thought I would ask an expert! the lovely Donna Flower came up trumps as always and found me a section of an old 18th century french wallpaper, so with some tweeking, rejigging and expert redrawing (not by me - people are not my strong point - they always come out looking like gnomes!) here are teh colourways of my new jardin toile.
It is a very beautiful design, there are none of the grizzly hunting scenes or ugly bits which often appear in traditional toiles, however when you look closely there is alot going on. I kept looking for an interesting garden name to call it based on some kind of pleasure garden- (there seems to be quite a bit of flirtation going on in the design!) however, when i started the business I swore to myself i wouldn't give any of my designs impossible to pronounce names, because it causes all manner of difficulties for customers and sales people alike, so even though 'tuileries' and 'medici' (well i couldn't call it 'boboli' toile could I!!) were strong contenders, I think I will keep it simple, unless any of you dear readers can come up with a better suggestion.....

6 comments:

  1. love it! Especially in Orange and darkest purple.

    Happy November x

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  2. Looks lovely Sarah, how about calling it 'Enchanted Garden', not very French admittedly but people will be able to pronounce it!

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  3. It looks absolutely divine. Now I have both your chinoiserie and toile to save up for...

    What about naming it after a memorable historical French woman? Pompadour, Antoinette, Scudéry, or the salonnières who ran the intellectual salons of the seventeenth century?

    In any case, I'm sure people will want it whatever you call it!

    Thanks as always for inspiring posts and beautiful things to look at...

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  4. They are all lovely. Great colours

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  5. How about naming it Trianon after Marie Antoinette's 'pastoral' garden (where sheep were dressed up with pink bows) in Versailles? It's pretty easy to pronounce too.

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  6. Gasp!!! How wonderful Sarah, you are sooo clever.

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