visually beautiful

 i seem to loving all things french inspired this week, must be to do with the collection i am working on at the moment (a sneak peek for you soon) . these lovely images are from the lovely jane sacchi, doyenne of antique french textiles website

scrap bags

jo and i have been busy making hardaker & pope scrap bags for the forthcoming vintage handmade fair


















they are quite time consuming as we are both awful perfectionists and like them to be filled with the kind of delights that we love!!
anyway here are a few to wet your appetite and if you can't make it to vintage handmade (you should come it is a great day out - and a bit like being let loose in a sweetie shop) then contact us and we are happy to post them out.

the husbands just 'don't get it' they cannot appreciate little bags of loveliness and want to know the exact purpose for them....... we say they don't have to have a purpose, but their uses are endless ..................

dollmaking, scrapbooking, patchwork,  little gifts, heirloom treasures,  little pictures, cardmaking the list is endless,  what do you use your little bits of fabric for? let us know in the comments and go into a draw to win one of our lovely scrapbags .

linen

I am working on a lovely plain collection at the moment and I just can't stop photographing these linens. the colours are just divine, soft muted, chalky and utterly gorgeous. I can't pick a favourite.

inspired

Before I start I apologise, this is going to be a long post with a lot of images, but I've been caught by a bug, I'm in seventh heaven and totally inspired. Thanks to a very interesting talk on Sousanis, given by Olivia Dell in her lovely little shop in Nailsworth. Of course this is part of the Stroud Textile Festival and ties in with a lovely exhibition on at Newark Park. However I wouldn't have gone to the talk if it wasn't for hubby's aunt who invited me to join her. I'm always keen to find out more so I happily went along.

We sat around on straw stools, drinking Melissa tea and eating Bakalva and Turkish Delight as Olivia told us how she came to have such an amzaing collection before she started pulling the sousanis off the shelf, like a wily purveyor of Eastern goods (I'll give you special price!), flinging them in the air by the corners and letting the cloth fall to the floor for us to admire and scrutinise.
The word sousani comes from the Persian for needle and these amazing embroidered materials would originally have been wedding canopies, bedspreads, table cloths or prayer mats. Something to brighten up their homes amidst the colourless landscape in which they lived


The women of the family would painstakingly embroider the design, which would have been drawn by the 'wise woman' of the village. Members of the family would then be given a strip of the fabric and work it independently, perhaps taking it away from the village during the summer months, only to return with a finished piece to be added to the others. As a result the colours and patterns do not match perfectly, but this is embraced rather than posing as a problem and, I think, adds to the personal nature and provenance of each piece. Looking in detail at this work, and think about how much time it would take to do, made me realise my incompetencies - lack of skill and patience to say the least!



Then we digressed to Matisse, as some of the motifs were familiar to those found in his work. While I did go to the Matisse exhibition I don't remember much about it so now I really want to read the enormous Hilary Spurling Biography I've had for years (and it's only volume 1). Where I'm I meant to find the time to do that?

But for me the most eye catching element of the sousani was the backs! I've found a new passion I think and I'm going to have to have words with Sarah to see if I can persuade her to do a new collection just for me. The wonderful Russian cotton fabrics are beautiful. The lightness of the fabric, the lovely designs and the wonderful colours, I'm just so happy. So happy that I've had to order this amazing book . I just hope it comes quickly!

The better examples of the fabrics were actually in Olivia's supply of 'coats'. The outside would be richly coloured velvets or brightly coloured ikat silks. Inside the random use of colour and pattern is brilliant. Some times there are three or four different fabrics used for the inside of one coat, but your eye doesn't even notice it at first. And it really doesn't seem to matter whether they clash or tone with the outside.

I don't really know the history of these fabrics, I think they were made especially for the East Asian market but my google -ing has proved futile so far and I'm going to have to wait until my new book comes before I fully understand.


Meanwhile I shall just have to lust after these images. I was sorely tempted to by an Ottoman coat, I need something to replace my grubby terry-towelling dressing gown but couldn't quite justify spending £175 no matter how beautiful the Russian fabric inside is.


This red tulip design was gorgeous (Sarah take note), and it had deep purple version of the same design on other parts of the coat

And this butterfly/flower design is so pretty and the coat so lovely you could wear it either way round. The combination of the silk ikat and light Russian cotton made it incredibly comfortable and easy to wear. I flounced around in front of the mirror for quite a bit until baby screeched because she'd dropped her book and brought me back to reality.

I would just like to thank Olivia who very kindly let me photograph to my hearts content this morning.

beautiful beautiful colour

on my little jaunt to London last week for design week I stopped at the Designers Guild showroom and shop in Kings Rd. Designers Guild and Osborne and Little (my old employers!) don't show in Chelsea Harbour, they chose to retain their old showrooms on kings rd, and I am so glad they did, it is much nicer to go there than the homogeneous chelsea harbour showroom complex.

I love the space and the styling in Designers Guild. Tricia Guild is ever so clever, a bit like Nina Campbell and Cath Kidston (now I know the three of them have nothing in common in terms of aesthetic, but i shall explain!) - all three of them have stuck to their design principles, they have a style, they know their style, and they are good at their style. They don't stray, they just do it and build on it. They have a recognizable but (perhaps with the exception of Cath Kidston) indefinable 'look'.

Tricia Guild and her team do colour brilliantly. She has an innate sense of colour and what works. she is not afraid of colour, and is not afraid of what many of us would consider challenging combinations.

the space and light in the designers guild showroom is so lovely, it enables customers to feel that the DG world is accessible to them and they can be part of that look.

there was alot of this colour around and about at design week, that yellowy green that doesn't seem to have a definable name - i call it mimosa in my range! here Designers Guild have teamed it with various shades teal and grey, and it works really well.

Incidentally there was a lot of grey popping up in various showrooms at deign week, i do believe it works better in interiors than in fashion - i still can't get a grip of wearing school uniform colours - so dull.

it was nice to see a few old friends hiding in the DG showroom too, julie arkell above tucked next to some glamorous wallpaper, and apolline below on the end of a childs bed. - very nice for me to see an apolline creation in the flesh.

sorry I know i have posted loads of pictures again but its nice to see lots of visuals.

inspired by fairy tales

i feel that a post about fairytales, dolls and creatures was almost fated. every conversation recently has had some reference , be it my friend caroline searching for vintage scraps for dollmaking.

or an entry to our birthday cake competeition from the fabulous rebecka of vintage fairy tales

which sparked a lovely email conversation about gardens and flowers. everything seems to be feeling fairytale at the moment! do go and check out rebecka's stunning creations and amazing photos on her blog.

Anyway all this reminded me of a great exhibition Jo and I went to see at the museum in the park in stoud a few years ago, called folk art and fairy tales. It was filled to the rafters with amazing characters and creatures, such as this lovely character by samantha bryan who blogs here all of her creations had little personalities, almost as if they had a voice.

Jess Brown is a textile artist who has been featured in selvedge magazine, she creates dolls with character and beauty but without tweeness, they are simple and pared down.

The most beautifully elegant of dolls are those created by pipsqueak chapeau, the fabrics used have such a simple grace.

su blackwell is an artist who Jo and I have admired for a very long time, she inspired Jo's amazing christmas cake. Again I think her work has this almost secret beauty, almost as if you are sneaking up and seeing something that has escaped from the pages of the book.


Apolline has that same quality, you must visit their website, don't whatever you do skip the intro, and do make sure you have the sound on, on your computer to enjoy a secret peek into a magical world, it is one of Miss B's very favourites!

More of su blackwells magical creations

when Jo and I went to see folk art and fairytales we were both (along with all of the children) completely mesmerised by this piece by Lucy Casson. This is just a detail, but there are lots of little pictures of the piece here, click on the thumbnails. Again the artist had managed to create a little vignette of characters all working, the piece is called 'the upholsterers studio' and it is a chair being worked on by a cast of little creatures, you can almost hear their conversations tinkling as you watch.

one can't write a piece about fairytale creatures without a mention of the amazing julie arkell, I am hoping Jo will one day post the pictures of the family she made when she went on one of Julie's courses in stroud. Julie also does a course at les souers anglaise in Briancon each summer, and I am very envious of Sam and Rebecka who went last year.

finally my other favourite from the folkart and fairytales show (these photos were found on flickr) was the work of textile artist Jayne Lennard, who seems to have no web presense, so all I can tell you is that this piece was called 'thumbellinas trousseau' and it was an exquisite collection of little garments in pale linens, which looked as though they had been made by fairies!

Anyway I hope you enjoy a little sprinle of fairy dust on this grey february evening.......

clarke and clarke designs

A good friend of mine has recently launched his fabric range which he sells very successfully here in the uk, in the USA under his clarke and clarke label.Lee who owns the company has a really good eye for design and trend, and I wish him every success for his US launch.

So all of you lovely readers who are usa based go over and take a look at clarke and clarke for some lovely English fabrics and styling.

If you are uk based and interested in using these fantastic fabrics go to www.globaltex.co.uk

where you can see the companys full range. I have to say I seem to go therough tonnes of their spotty oilcloth.