Working With Pattern

August 20, 2015ann wallace

Mixing patterns can be challenging and fabric companies have a lively business manufacturing coordinated colorways for home decorating, quilting and other projects, all made to take the fear out of what is actually one of the most fun projects. Pre-designed fabric collections always look matchy-matchy to me.

What a pleasure it was then to work this summer with a client to add stencilled curtains to a breathtaking restoration project using lots of dark wood and Bradbury and Bradbury wallpapers. These papers have the kind of dense early Arts & Crafts patterns that often instill a total fear of additional pattern but this client had very sophisticated taste and inspired the whole studio with her interesting choices. Plain curtains or shades would have been fine but the rooms now have an extra wow!

Small Rose stencil with Bradbury Thornberry

Water Lily border stencil with Bradbury Knightsbridge Damask

Ivy Border stencil with Bradbury Sweetbriar

Creatures Great & Small

August 03, 2015ann wallace

Anyone who has noticed my ads, or the header picture for this page, knows that I love animals. Living with them AND textiles can be a project however. Here are some of the animal friendly projects I’ve done over the years:
Small stencilled curtains for the lower part of glass doors to protect them from dog drool AND keep the dogs from getting too excited at outdoor goings-on.
A Roman shade that only covered part of the window so that the dogs could see out.
Stencilled linen drop cloths to attractively protect the furniture from dogs.
Special washable cushion covers for a home with a cat with a urinary infection

We made some linen drop clothes for these sweet boys.

Here’s what I’ve learned:
Oatmeal linen is the most pet friendly fabric. Its slightly rough and texture and uneven color shows spots and marks the least.

Stay on top of the fur removal as best you can. My dog is a Korean Jindo - a true fur machine with a tough over coat that seems to hook in to fabric. I find a sticky roll type lint remover works best. During shedding season I use it daily! A damp sponge can work for cat fur and feels less wasteful - it won’t hurt the linen. Pet fur has natural oils and can stain fabric if left on too long.

Pet drool (!) is a protein based stain and responds well to immediate attention with spray spot removers like SHOUT. Don’t wait too long! Use an glass cleaner like WINDEX on roller shades and try to avoid scrubbing over any stencilling.

As for that beloved cat with the urinary infection....that is really tough. The smell of cat urine is very difficult to remove but a surprisingly effective tool is...air! Hang your textile where there is good air circulation all around it (NOT a closet). It can take weeks but eventually those odor molecules basically float away. I once saved a vintage portiere by airing it for a month where there was agentle, constant breeze. This works for mildew as well.

Crazy Color

July 14, 2015ann wallace

Looking through a HUGE file of old pictures, I came across a picture of a Pine Cone runner we did sometime ago (2005!!), a custom order in a very unusual color scheme. As is often the case, I never got to see the runner in it final location but I imagine a kind of mash up of Wiener Werkstatte colors and traditional Stickley motifs...a nifty idea.

Accessories offer a good opportunity to expand the colors in a room and were often used in the period to introduce quite bright color accents. Here's an actual period kit, never completed but intact with instructions, thread, backing and all! But look at those colors. Most of the vintage embroidery we see has faded and you have to look at the back to see how intense the colors were.