Valentino Spring 2012

As I flipped through magazine after magazine, a particular trend caught my eye.

Louis Vuitton Spring 2012

Designers were embracing lace.

Dolce & Gabbana Spring 2012

A LOT of lace.

Which means that the current trend for vintage lace in interiors is only going to get stronger.  But how do you embrace the look without going full on frilly?  Here are some suggestions….

First off, you should limit yourself to only one, at most two, lace items in a room.  This vintage lace hanging lamp, from Etsy seller Nice, makes a great statement, without seeming fussy.  Plus, the shadows from the lace further soften the room.

Speaking of softening a room, that is the second thing you should take away from this post – lace works best as a way to introduce a softer line to rooms that would otherwise seem too harsh or stark.  So if there is a room in your house that feels dead or cold, try adding a touch of lace.

Lastly, keep in mind that the vintage lace look doesn’t actually have to be, well,… lace.  It can take the form of a stenciled floor…

a pretty piece of decorative ceramic (love these bird bowls!)…

or even a concrete curtain.

So go on, give vintage lace a try.  You KNOW you want to!

Oh, and to find out more about these images, and many other cool ways to use lace, check out my Trending – Vintage Lace board on Pinterest.

Thanks for visiting!

Rachel

In honor of the day, here are a couple of wonderful, recycled Army blanket pillows I thought you might like to take a look at.

Created by Etsy seller Shop at Ten, these pillows are made from old Army blankets that are then hand felted with fun new patterns.

Here, a series of patches added to the blanket over time were surrounded with colorful, needle-felted roving, becoming a wonderful pattern of irregular squares.  What many would see as a flaw has instead become an inspired design.

You can see more of Shop at Ten’s work here.

Thanks for visiting – and don’t forget to give a Veteran a hug today.  They deserve it, and so much more!

Rachel

Harmony Art Chili Pepper Flannel

The lovely folks at Near Sea Naturals, the already notable internet source for organic fabric, have taken things to a whole new level with their new venture, American Grown-Spun-Milled.  With an inventory consisting of nothing that isn’t organically grown and then spun and manufactured in the United States, they are fulfilling a growing need for more locally based materials.  They are also continuing a long tradition of cotton and wool production in North America, as well as providing work for mills whose workload might otherwise be shipped off to China or India for cheaper manufacture.

Says Tara Bloyd, president of NearSea Naturals -

“At a time when many textile jobs and businesses are going overseas, our customers are demanding domestic, sustainable fabrics. They understand the importance of supporting the US textile industry and want to keep their business supply chains local.”

So far, their inventory is small, but enticing.   I imagine as demand increases so will the number of choices.  For now, here are some of the lovelies they have:

Thanks to my friend Harmony, of Harmony Art organic fabrics for letting me know about this great new online source!

And as always…
Thanks for visiting!

Rachel

Well now you can – at least in pillow form – thanks to Etsy seller My Bearded Pigeon.   Who wouldn’t want to dream of great explorations while snuggled up on this pillow?

Since the adorable child is not included, here’s what the pillow looks like on its own…

This bright and cheerfully colored map, circa 1865, is printed onto a 100% organic cotton pillow cover, with a black organic cotton back and zipper closure (insert not included).

My Bearded Pigeon also has an amazing selection of decorative map pillows for grown-ups who dream of travel.

Maybe you’re dreaming of a tropical island paradise…

Or the summer heat means all you want to do is cool off on some Antarctic adventure.

Perhaps you’re having wistful thoughts of Spring in Paris.

Me? I still dream of the wedding and honeymoon I had in Italy.

But this summer, it’s all about our home state, as my son has to go to five historic California sites before school starts again. Do you think he could get extra credit if I marked where he had visited on this pillow and gave it to his teacher?  Yeah, I didn’t think so.

There are so many places to choose from, whether it’s a place that you dream of, or a thoughtful gift for someone a long way from home. Cath, of My Bearded Pigeon, will even take custom requests if you don’t see the place you’re thinking of.  Best of all, for each pillow sold, $1 is used in support of non-profit microlender Kiva.org, an organization I also support and recommend.

Cath does a few non-map pillows as well, including this wonderful, hand-embroidered poem by Bruce Williamson…

I can think of no better sentiment for the moment, as it is my son’s first day of summer vacation and we have a LOT of sandcastles to build before the summer is done!

Be sure to check out more of My Bearded Pigeons marvelous pillows here.

Designed and made by Etsy seller GreenatHeart, these fantastically colorful rugs are made of recycled t-shirts from local thrift shops and other charities.

Of course, rag rugs have long been a way to recycle old clothing, linens, fabric cuttings and what have you, but they also tend to look just like you would think something made of scraps would look.   Not these vibrant rugs…

Now THAT’S green!

Such a pretty combination of blue and gold.

Look at how this black and khaki rug pops!

The pricing is very reasonable considering the level of workmanship, which probably goes a long way to explaining the current 4 month wait for custom rug orders.  A very small selection of ready made rugs is also available, if you just can’t wait.

Click here to see more of GreenatHeart’s beautiful rugs.

After gathering at the lovely French General for the workshop, we all carpooled over to the park where our dyeing experience would take place.

Once at the park we got a delightful and informative overview of the history of woad dyeing from Denise Lambet, who flew all the way from the South of France just to create a legion of new woad addicts dyers.  After regaling us with stories of previous woad workshop students stripping down to their skivvies in an attempt to have just ONE more garment to dunk in the vats, she proceeded to explain how the process worked, and what we would need to do to have a successful dyeing experience.  Then we got to work.

We were each provided with a bucket full of water and a stick, and told we needed to get our items thoroughly wet – NO air bubbles allowed!  Air is not your friend when you are dyeing with woad. Not only will air bubbles in your fabric block the dye from bonding with it, they also cause the woad to activate to a blue color prematurely, rendering the batch of woad weaker.

In case you didn’t look at the previous post, here is what a fresh batch of woad dye looks like.  Delicious, no?

After a brief moment of hesitancy, we all started cautiously dipping our first textiles into the woad.

Then we progressively got bolder… 

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

Ahem.  OK, maybe not THAT bold.

Pretty soon we were plunging our hands in as well as our fabrics.  Thank goodness we were wearing gloves!

Well, most of us were anyway.  A few hardy souls decided to go into full on woad mode, leaving their hands a lovely shade of blue that will last them for weeks.  Badge of honor I guess.

That is some yarn being dyed.  I would love to see something made from it!

Sometimes, strange “creatures” would float to the surface of a vat.  Any guesses what that is?

As soon as you dyed something, you needed to hang it up so the initial yellowish color could oxygenate to the final lovely blue.  You could watch it happen as you ran to the line.  Pretty cool.

Here are a few of the items I dyed.  The depth of blue depended on the strength of the batch (they varied over the 6 or so vats available), the type of fiber, and the time you left it in the dye.

Soon the drying lines started to fill up, so they had to put up more line…

and more line…

until we ran out, and we started to use the rock walls.

This is one of those times when I wish I had an extreme wide angle lens, because I want to badly so show you how there was blue EVERYWHERE in sight.  It was almost 360 degrees of blue.  So beautiful!

People were dyeing everything from yarn, to lace, to small tablecloths, to these sneakers.  After lunch, I only had one item left to dye, and once I was done with that I still felt the itch.  So I did exactly what Denise Lambet predicted…

I took the clothes off my back and plopped them in!  That used to be an oatmeal colored organic cotton sweater I’m standing behind.  Now it is a gorgeous shade of dusky blue.  If there hadn’t been a little bit of a chill in the air (not to mention a few men folk around) I might have been tempted to see what else I had on to toss in a vat.

All in all, it was an amazing afternoon.   The wonderful folks at French General are hoping to offer this workshop again next year.  I’m not sure if I can wait!  That blue is so pretty, I want to dye everything in sight.  My sheets,… my curtains,… my towels,… my cat,….  Oh dear…

Hello, my name is Rachel Hulan, and I have a woad addiction.

Bet you would too!

Woad comes from the common Isatis tinctoria plant.  It has been in use as a pigment and dye since Egyptian times, and possibly longer.  Many have thought that the blue pigment the Picts (early Scottish tribes) used to color their skin blue was woad, although there is some debate about that.  Oddly, for a dye that has been around for so long, it is surprisingly difficult to extract.  Because of that, the cultivation and processing were controlled by wealthy “woad masters” throughout much of European history.  Until Napoleonic times, the extraction method took a full year and a half, and involved a long fermentation in urine filled vats.  I can’t even begin to imagine the smell!  And not just any pee would do.  In order to have the proper ph level. it had to be human male pee.  Thus the preponderance of taverns near where the woad was produced.  Cheers!

image via woad.org.uk

Even once Napoleon’s chemists had figured out a quicker (and hopefully less odoriferous) method, so as to supply his army with blue cloth, the extraction was still a laborious process.  Above are workers hand rolling “woad balls” in order to put them out to dry.  Unfortunately, the heavy manual labor required to extract the dye made it fall out of favor, and the last woad production ended in England in the early part of the 20th century.  Happily, some dedicated people, like those at Bleu de Pastel de  Lectoure , have been working hard, to not only revive the art, but to improve upon it and make it a commercially viable, natural, alternative to synthetic dyes.

image via woad.org.uk

Here is a contemporary woad ball, from which you can see dripping one of the most interesting aspects of woad.  It isn’t actually blue.  Well, at least not to start.  The dye begins as a sickly greenish yellow.

Here is an image I took of one of the vats we used last weekend.  Looks SO appealing, doesn’t it?  And by the way, although no pee is involved in the process these days, the smell is still a bit on the strong side.  At this point in the game, I was not feeling quite so enthused.

However, if you notice the color of the bubble sludge forming at the top, you will see a lovely blue color.  This is the amazing thing with woad.  It needs oxygen to turn blue!  I’ll tell you more about that in my second installment next week.

Woad can be used as either a dye or a pigment, and it is light fast, unlike indigo.  That makes it a really useful substitute for synthetic pigments used in everything from printing to car paint.  Above you can see a comparison of indigo (the darker blue on the left) and woad pigment powder.  The color of woad truly is unique, and in many ways I now prefer it to indigo.

So now that you know a little bit about woad, I thought I would give you a peek at how the French General workshop day started.

As everyone arrived at the shop, we were each greeted warmly by owner Kaari Meng.  Although I came by myself, I instantly felt comfortable and amongst friends (of the “I just met you but you seem cool” sort).  There were tables upon tables of delightful linens, fabric scraps and sundries, all for sale and ready for dyeing.  I had picked out a few items from home to dye, but couldn’t resist getting a few extra things to try out too.  Here is what I planned to dye:

Doilies???  Yep, I bought some doilies, and you know what?  I am SO glad I did, because they were some of my favorite pieces once they were dyed.  You can also see a white cotton blouse, a bundle of fabric scraps, and a bit of the two tablecloths I brought along.

Check back Monday for An Ode to Woad – Part 2, in which I discover that I now have a serious addiction problem.

Twill Textiles has just released a handsome new printed fabric collection by Peter Fasano.  Both Taconic Ticking & Taconic Stripe are printed on Belgium linen in 5 colorways: Mushroom, Sage, Straw, Lake, and Chinese Red.  Perfect for drapery or upholstery.  I love the way the printing highlights the texture of the fibers.

Contact Twill Textiles to learn about this and other sustainable fabric offerings.

PaperBoy was started by a mother (Victoria) who couldn’t find fun, good quality wallpaper for her boys bedroom. At least, wallpaper that wasn’t totally twee.  With her two six-year-old boys as critics, she set about coming up with hand-drawn images that combined classic ideas like dinosaurs and pets, with edgier imagery like graffiti and skeletons.  And thus was born Paperboy Wallpaper.

The funny thing is, that while parents might think these patterns are a bit too scary for their sweet little baboo, the kids really dig the imagery.  What dino loving kid wouldn’t want to imagine hanging out with them, like the boy in D’ya-think-e-saurus?

I can tell you just from the evidence in my 9 year old son’s pockets, that kids find skeletons fascinating.  I know he would LOVE to have a pillow with the Animal Magic print on it.

Hand screen printed on 100% Irish linen, these fabrics can be ordered in quantities as small as 1 m, so it’s easy to buy just enough to make a pillow. Or you could go all out, and by enough to make some really fun (and spooky) curtains.

And for those of you who find marauding dinosaurs, or skeletonized bunnies a bit too much, there are always the sweet shadow puppets of Hand Made.

Though for me personally, I’m all about the killer bunnies.

This morning it’s all sunshine and fluffy clouds, which is the perfect setting to think about springtime. In celebration of the change of seasons, I thought it would be fun to take a look at some of my favorite floral prints in organic and sustainable fabrics. Enjoy!

Plover Organic, Pink Roses – 100% organic cotton

WonderFluffShop (Etsy seller), Aqua Daisies – 100% organic cotton

Harmony Art, 10 Flowers - 100% organic cotton

LIVE Textiles, Topiary – 100% organic linen

Ink & Spindle, Flowering Gum - organic cotton and hemp blend

Rubie Green, Marilyn – 100% organic cotton

Mod Green Pod, Bloom – 100% organic cotton

Do you have a favorite organic or sustainable floral fabric?  Let us know about it in the comments below.