WINTER BLUES

The first week of February is a hard time of year.  Athough we've been slipping imperceptibly towards spring for sometime now, it hardly feels like it.  The winds are cruel, the days dark and short, and the earth sodden.  But on a rare bright day, it pays to take note of the striking shapes that bare branches cast against the sky, and the beauty of frosted landscapes:

I've been looking at fabrics that evoke the stark beauty of winter in a bid to banish these seasonal blues:

 Boeme's painterly Betula Northern Light is a impressionistic panel of wintery birch trees.

This is a Flockhart print called Winter Flower in blue, evoking that harbinger of spring - the crocus.

 Here's another revival by Flockhart of the work of mid-century textile designer, Eileen Guthrie, called Zig Zag - in grey.

  Lindsay Alker uses lino-blocks to create her designs which are then silk-screened onto heavy linen. This one is called Great Battle Wood in light grey.

 Scandi textile designers generally work hard to banish the winter blues by using huge amounts of bright colour and summery subjects, but Marimekko's Lumimarya is a clean intepretation of nature in winter and is one of my favourite Marimekko prints.

This is another Marimekko print, called Heina, with monochrome bundles of grasses, printed on fine linen. 

Mark Alexander's ethereal printed linen, called Bonsai Moonshine, from the Artisan Prints collection is so subtle and beautiful.  

I feel better already!

KID'S FABRICS THAT ADULTS WILL LOVE!

I have never been a fan of gender-specific, cutsey kiddie's fabric - just as I've never believed in baby-talk.  The best advice I was ever given in the early years of child-rearing, was 'kid's just want to grow up - so let them do as much as they can themselves, as soon as they can'.

Doesn't mean I don't believe in fun, though.  Kid's just want to have fun - as well as grow up.  With that in mind I've been looking recently for some 'grown-up' kid's fabric.  Stuff you - and the kids - wouldn't mind hanging on to long after they've outgrown the tutu's and playmobil.

 Nursery Yellow is a beautifully distressed print from Flockhart, a fabric company that has revived the 1930's designs of the owner's grandmother, Eileen Guthrie.  Timeless!

 Sanderson's St Ives print is a naive, and yet realistic impression of a huddle of Cornish cottages in the town it is named after.

Lotta Jansdotta is a New York based designer who draws on scandi roots to produce clean and bright prints such as this Moira Aqua in her Signature collection for Ashley Wilde.

 Sarah Waterhouse is based in Sheffield and creats sustainable, eco-friendly prints (with Soil Association approved dyes) that are joyful and colourful.  This one,unsurprisingly, is called Waves. 

Apart from having a great name, Skinny Laminx is notable for being the outlet for South African based designer Heather Moore's exuberant prints.  Love this one called Herds, based on rock art from caves in the Western Cape.   

St Jude's produce wonderful fabrics from the work of artist's they admire, including this one called Curiosity Shop by Emily Sutton.

Trust Ikea to take fun - and DIY - to the nth degree! This fabric is called Tidny and is designed to be coloured in with permanent fabric markers.