HAPPY VALENTINE!

I've scoured the world (wide web) for some loud and proud and - yes - throbbing heart print fabrics in honour of the impending day of Saint Valentine.  No sacharine sweet St Valentine's here - just large-scale and super colourful love-liness.  Enjoy!

Corita Rose is a textile company based in Dorset, making wonderful, exuberant printed fabrics.  This one is called Amor Yellow, printed on linen with devotional hearts interspersed with blue birds.

This is another Corita Rose fabric, called Medieval Hearts in red, printed on cotton velvet.

South African studio printers, Designkist specialise in digital prints with an African flavour - this one is called Shweshwe Hearts - 'shweshwe' refers to the indigo printed fabrics of traditional South African dress.

I cannot resist this pretty print from Fancy Moon called Corazones Primavera by California-based designers de Leon Group - with lots of little Mexican devotional hearts dancing across the fabric.

Another large scale design of  embroidered hearts in zingy colours on white cotton called (understandably) Sweet Heart by Harlequin.  These folksy embroidered hearts are nearly 20 cm across with rich textured stitching that reminds me of eastern European embroideries.

Umbrella Prints are based in Australia and call this Grand Hearts in Smokey Black, printed on an organic hemp and cotton basecloth.  On a grand scale, these hearts intersect to form a curvy and bold honeycomb pattern.  Here's another shot to give you a better idea:

May your Valentine's Day be filled with love as strong, vibrant and passionate as all these fabrics. 

12 MAKES OF CHRISTMAS NO. 3

THE TABLECLOTH

Here's another easy make - whether as a gift or to grace your own table.  Just measure your table, allow enough overhang on all sides, cut your fabric accordingly and make a narrow hem on all sides.

Re: fabric - make sure it is washable, and to avoid shrinkage later, wash and dry the fabric before you start bearing in mind that a tablecloth gets stained and needs to be washed long and hard sometimes.  

My fabric is a lightweight cotton from Fancy Moon, printed with a joyous folkloric print that gladdens my heart whenever I look at it - it makes me think of gypsy caravans, narrow boats and all things folksy and summery.  Its narrow though (112 cm) which is perfect for my kitchen table, but not going to work on a wide dining table - however, in that case I would make a table runner and use it to jazz up a plain tablecloth (even a paper one!)

GHOST STORIES

As I've already mentioned, I spent sometime in Singapore this August.  In Chinese culture, August is the month of the Hungry Ghost, when it is believed spirits of ones ancestors return to visit the living. Elaborate feasts are prepared and served to empty seats at the family table and offerings of food and joss are made at altars throughout the city.  To me, it seemed an appropriate time of year to be re-visiting the place of my birth as I was there to attend an exhibition commemorating my father's work and I could feel his hungry ghost everywhere I went!

A Hungry Ghost alter outside a Chinatown shopping centre in downtown Singapore.

Now its October and the run up to Halloween - a festival I have never enjoyed.  Call me killjoy, but I don't relish the doorstepping rituals of badly dressed children who I don't know, extorting favours from me that will only rot their teeth.  And, on a wider note, I don't like the way it shrouds death in all that spooky scary nonsense of spiderwebs, witches and skeletons!  Give me a clear-cut

 hungry ghost who'll sit down to a slap up meal at my dinner table and give me an excuse to remember times past any day of the year.

So some bells went off in my head recently while reading about the Mexican Day of the Dead - or Dia de los Muertos - a festival that dates back 3000 years to the Aztecs, where they too believe that the dead come back home to visit and everyone celebrates with dancing, music, flowers and food.  Sounds a lot like the Hungry Ghost festival if you ask me!  And guess what? In earlier times the festival used to take up a whole month - the month of August - even more similarities with China! When the Spanish conquered Mexico, they tried to stamp out the Day of the Dead, and when that didn't work, they shifted the date so that it segued into the Christian Halloween and All Souls Day!  

All of this preamble is really just an excuse to showcase some astounding fabrics with Mexican Day of the Dead themes.  They are designed and printed in California by Henry Alexander and are sold online over here by Fancy Moon.

A word of warning to all the makers out there : these fabrics are only 44" - or 112 cms wide so in most cases you need to allow for more fabric than normal, or use plain borders to extend the width of the fabric (and to be honest, with such busy designs on quite thin fabric, borders can be useful in another way - to add definition and lend support).  Below is an image of a blind I made using Fancy Moon's Baile de Cavaleros - heavily lined and interlined, with a dark dark navy linen border to frame it - it hangs over a desk in a study and I'm sure its subject-matter improves the clarity and spirit of the work that takes place beneath it!

LOVE TRIANGLES

Last year I talked about my new blinds and how, after weeks of agonising, I very uncharacteristically plumped for a dizzy abstract triangle print from Romo.  I should not have fretted because nine months later I am still mesmerised by this seemingly simple design.  The intermittent pop of random colour causes the pattern to morph from square to triangle, lozenge to diamond, egg-timer to envelope.  I find it strangely soothing, which probably says more about me than the fabric!