liberty birds

Those of you who have been following the blog for a while will know that both Sarah and I have a thing about birds.

I also have a thing about Liberty Tana Lawn. It all stems from the Liberty Gift vouchers my Scottish Grandparents used to send me for Christmas. Whilst there was a small Liberty haberdashers in Bath what I really enjoyed was visiting the original shop. Although we had beautiful tana lawn smocked dresses handmade by my mother, they were for parties. For going UP to London we would wear our kilts (with their homemade calico bodices).

Once inside the flagship London store I was in my element. I loved the heavy timber beams and the atrium where you could look upwards and see everything on offer in the amazing emporium. I spent my vouchers on stuffed frogs and dogs, pin cushions, little photo frames, big photo frames - and they all had one thing in common. Everything I ever bought was Liberty Print tana lawn.

The nostalgic familiarity of these prints are what encouraged me to make my covered buttons and lavender cushions that I sell at fairs and I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised to find that other people have the same affiliation with these prints as I do.

One such person is Kathy Hutton, I met her at a fair and instantly fell in love with her work. The combination of familiar tana lawn prints, birds, washing lines and screen printing is a killer for me!