If this was a fabric...

We recently went to see the Olympics at the Olympic Park where we had a chance to enjoy the atmosphere and watch the games. It was a great day with a huge amount of things to do and see. 

One of the most wonderful aspects however was the landscaping and I thought I would share this photo of a bank of gorgeous plants all flowering together. The clever and stunning planting of large drifts of prairie and meadow flowers giving huge sweeps of colour which on a smaller scale might be viewed as gaudy. 

 All I kept thinking was, if this was a fabric...

Beautiful Victorian Bead-work

Beautiful Victorian Bead-work panel

Just a quick share of this elegant bead-work panel dating from the 19th C with beautiful leaves entwining lovely lifelike twigs, it really is the most delightful and intricate piece. The work involved is astounding! And a long panel too, with just the last piece at the bottom unfinished.

Beautiful Petit Point Work, c 1900 French - of course!

Beautiful petit point work, French c. 1900

This is a stunning piece of needlepoint, the whole of the centre piece is done in petit point, really close work, and that takes a huge amount of time and patience - as well as good eyesight. The colours are glorious, so summery with the sky blue background setting the flowers at their best almost like tropical butterflies. It is actually a cushion seat at the moment, and being worked in such small stitches it has no signs of wear at all, despite the age.

If you were to cost out the hours taken for a piece of this calibre you would pay hundreds of pounds for it, however that is not the way of the world and it is for sale for a lot less than that! It could be made into a different shaped cushion as there is plenty of background to work with. Gorgeous piece.

Below are roses flowering freely, you can see the old fashioned roses in the needlepoint design

Imagine this in your home!

Variegate di Bologna - inspiring roses!

Heady scent and vibrant colour of Duc de Guiche

Beautiful Birds and Bulrushes

This is one of my favourite fabrics, the detail is incredible, beautiful finches and rushes, insects and flowers all in a soft shell pink and ivory on a moss green background. The fabric is cotton, but a heavy serge cotton like canvas almost, just lovely. The fabric is on a pair of large French pleated curtains with the prettiest tops, rosettes where the pleat is, if only I had a room that needed yet more curtains!!

How Toiles were created...

The Miller, his son and the donkey

This is a charming original Toile, dating from the early 1800s, the subject matter is the miller, his son and the donkey, a fabric which tells a tale, often from Aesop's Fables in illustration. These illustrations were then put onto copper-plate and printed in a single colour onto linen or cotton, the detail being very fine. That is what a toile is and the early dating toiles are very collectable.  By early I mean c. 1770 onwards and some of those fabrics only survive as an original design in a museum.

Often they were part of an eleaborate bed-hanging set and over the years the set would either get separated or parts worn and damaged, so you find pieces and rarely an early complete set, which would be very valuable. This piece is a pelmet, and would have hung from the canopy, hand-quilted and backed in home-spun linen.

Just wonderful when you think every part of the process was hand-made from the illustration being drawn, engraved on the copper-plate, hand-printed onto the fabric which in those days would have been loomed but still 'manned', then the hand-work to back the fabric with hand-spun and loomed linen, and to hand-quilt it, finally the making of the piece to fit the bed for which it was ordered. Really only something that wealthy follk could afford, but because of the naive, pastoral style of the fabric it still endures today.