Summer Fabrics and Colours
Looking on the brighter side of life, there are plenty of glorious warm summer days ahead, giving us the opportunity to spend time outdoors, immersed in nature and plenty of fresh air.
I thought I would celebrate this glorious English season by gathering together some of my most summery and airy fabrics.
The impact of colour on our moods has long been known and is really useful knowledge to bear in mind when choosing fabrics for a room.
Yellow is the colour of flowers, sunshine, lemons, hope and happiness. It represents freshness, positivity, clarity, energy, enlightenment and joy. I have created a wide choice of yellows: Buttercup, Hay, Saffron, Straw, Sand and Honey.
Choose luxury eco friendly upholstery, interiors, cushions and Made to Measure curtains and blinds from all of our designer summer fabric styles.
Left: Cow Parsley – Saffron, Charcoal / Middle: Dainty Daisy – Dark Hay / Right: French Ticking – Saffron, Scree
Left: Fern and Dragonfly – Hay / Middle: Wild Rose – Buttercup, Clay, Charcoal / Right: Fruit Garden – Buttercup, Clay, Winter
Yellows mix with greys perfectly, illustrated above in this pretty yellow sitting room…fresh and very summery.
Pink…We often think of pink as peaceful and cheerful. Inside our houses the colour pink represents compassion and love; it relates to understanding and to the giving and receiving of nurturing.
Pink calms and reassures our emotional energies, alleviating feelings of anger, aggression, even resentment, abandonment and neglect…the power of colour is astonishing.
The names for my pinks are: Sweet Pea, Sea Pink, Damson, Dusky Pink, Lily Pink, Mallow and Rose.
Left: Fruit Garden Detail – Damson, Powder Blue, Charcoal / Middle: Fallow Deer – Damson / Right: May Blossom – Damson
Wild Fern – Lily Pink / Little Fern – Lily Pink / Lattice Leaf – Lily Pink, Mallow
Left: Dainty Daisy Detail – Damson, Field Green / Middle: Fruit Garden Detail – Light Kale, Damson, Charcoal
Get ready for your picnic! Create some colourful cushions for and extra summer feel.
By the Sea by Nicholas Arbuthnott
This design is a celebration of the quintessential British seaside and one which I hope will resonate with many of you, reminding you of times spent by the sea and indeed in anticipation of new coastal adventures…
Nicholas writes: “By the Sea was inspired by my early childhood in Solva in Wales and recent visits to Mousehole and St Ives. I delight in coastal towns with their cosy harbours and brightly coloured cottages, nestling behind little pathways that snake between terraces gardens and climb up the hillside.”
If there was ever a fabric to bring the feeling of seaside villages and harbours into your homes, then this is it…
Left: By the Sea – Saffron, Charcoal / Middle: By the Sea – Teal, Charcoal / Right: By the Sea – Scree, Charcoal
Left: This fun roller blind with a Plain Charcoal border and pelmet, provides lots to look at whilst having a bath / Middle: Blue is so the colour of the seaside…seen here in my Teal blue, this design is perfect for this mid-century quirky chair in a seaside cottage / Right: Here is the Scree colourway, along with my daughter Flora’s design Branching Out, depicting stylized birds in flight.
In the Garden
If you cannot make it to the seaside this summer, these fabrics will cheer you along in your garden. I love the Saffron teamed with Smoke and Duck Egg in this beautiful outside ‘room’, which we created for my romantic Bohemian Collection.
The tablecloth fabric, For the Love of Rose, tells the story of a Bohemian couple living in a shepherd’s hut. It was a family affair and inspired by my eldest daughter Rose’s drawings of a goat trying to reach up to eat the last green leaves on a tree – and my youngest daughter Flora’s passion for a simpler way of living and permaculture.
The jolly scalloped edge is in Pretty Maids Saffron & Winter.
Left: A sunny mix of Saffron Pretty Maids and Stockholm Stripe / Middle: What fun we had covering these old suitcases found in local junk shops. Nick and I actually took them with us (packed of course) to Paris and felt very stylish! / Right: For the Love of Rose makes a really summery tablecloth, here with a scalloped edge in Pretty Maids in Saffron.
Summer Linens
I love both the colour and texture of woven fabrics: I can’t resist the feel of individual spun yarns and the glorious handle of the cloth.
All these striped designs are unusual because the pattern is created by the traditional method of tying and dyeing. Unlike other tie dye patterns, these patterns are being made by tie dying the warp before it is woven.
Warp and weft are the two basic components used in weaving to turn thread or yarn into fabric. The longitudinal (north to south) warp yarns are held stationary in tension on a frame or loom while the transverse (west to east) weft is drawn through and inserted over-and-under the warp.
My Scandinavian Woven fabrics are beautiful, fresh 100% linens and would brighten up any home, seaside picnic or wherever your imagination leads you.
Left: Lapland Stripe – Dove, Saffron, Charcoal / Middle: Lapland Stripe – Duck Egg, Cornflower / Right: Lapland Stripe – Pigeon, Forget-me-not, Damson
Left: Lapland Stripe – Smoke, Duck Egg, Hay / Right: Lapland Stripe – Cornflower, Terracotta, Damask
Left: Airy, simple and understated. this cottage at Camber Sands on the Sussex coast has lovely timber boarded walls and floors / Middle: A melee of cushions on this window seat in the same cottage by the sea / Right: New rolls looking for homes…
Left: Fresh linen creating interest in this Smokey blue/green room / Middle: These striped linens are suitable for light upholstery only, such as a bedroom chair or head board / Right: Lapland Stripe cushions in the dunes on Camber Sands.
We can make all these cushions and quilts especially for you, just go to the Made to Measure section of my website and get started!
We sell fabrics exclusively designed by Vanessa Arbuthnott, along side small, bespoke collection of Made to Measure items which includes curtains, blinds, sofas, footstools, chairs, headboards, and quilts, all handmade specially for you by master crafts people.
