Fabric Friday

It's Fabric Friday time and today I decided to make a trip to the Knitting and Stitching Show at Olympia as I needed a bit of a fabric fix! It's a great show for getting inspiration for new designs and seeing what's out there, and I also saw a lot of designs that I had worked on for Makower. Of course, the main reason for going to the show was to stock up on fabrics, and that's what I did! I'd obviously had a bit of a barren phase fabric-wise as I ended up coming home with a rather large selection. Here's a little taster.

My favourite stall there is The Eternal Maker, a mother and daughter run store based on the South coast of England. They specialise in unique and quirky fabrics as well as stocking haberdashery, notions, paper crafts and buttons.

 I loved their selection of animal prints, especially the birds and foxes.

 Yellows are very popular right now and these ones are lovely and fresh.

  I couldn't resist the quirky cat heads and will make it up into a cosmetic bag with the yellow geo as a contrasting lining. A little project for the weekend perhaps?

 Elephants are popular and these ones are really sweet, with a matching polka dot for the lining.

I really liked the subtle gold on these three geometric designs and may incorporate them into a clutch bag design.

Flock of birds

I just added this pretty bird print cosmetic bag to my Etsy store. I love the colour combination and decided to match the pink and white polka dot lining to the pink bird in the print.

You can find it on my Etys store here.

Tweet!

I found these gorgeous little gift tags the other day, or should I say "Mini Mini Dress up Cards" which is their proper name - only in Japan. I have to say they are very cute. They come in gorgeous sugary shades of orange, yellow, turquoise and lilac and each one holds a sprig in its beak with a diamante bling attached. Lift the wing, and you can write your special message on it before you attach your birdie to your loved one's gift. Love it!

They are by Greeting Life Inc and you can see more of their products here.

Kathe Fraga

Who can resist these beautifully ethereal paintings by Kathe Fraga, who's art evokes "the hand-painted, timeworn walls of a grand old Parisian mansion". Kathe's art is inspired by the beauty and romance of vintage silky kimonos and hand-worked embroidery and her time living in places such as South America, Denmark, England and France, has clearly influenced her pieces.

You can see more of her beautiful work here.

Flock

Maxine Greer is a creative artist who produces drawings and sculptures in a variety of media. Her piece named "Flock" uses colourless, life-size paper sparrows and explores the narrative we have with birds, through agriculture, urbanisation, money, religion and love. The sparrows are stripped of colour and most detail, but still evoke the feel of a flock of garden birds that have a rather ethereal quality.

Maxine takes commissions, so you can have your own personal flock to take care of. You can see more on her website here.

Frumafar

I recently created a treasury on Etsy using birds as my theme - something I have been meaning to do for a while. On my search for lovely images to use, I came across this shop called Frumafar, where the image of circling birds caught my eye. Frumafar was set up by Mariko who lived and studied in New York before returning to Tokyo. She uses her Etsy store as a showcase for her and her friends' original custom-made fabrics. Each piece is printed onto light and smooth weight cotton, ideal for creating bags and pillow cases. One of my favourites is the beautiful gingko leaf, a classic and timeless Japanese image. You can see my treasury here and view more of Frumafar here.

Louise Body

I'm obviously rather taken by wallpapers at the mo and have just discovered another fab wallpaper designer called Louise Body. She uses photos and delicate drawings of nature on simple white grounds, and I love her birds on a wire with its subtle water colour-effect tint. I also love her new "Paper Tiles" collection which was inspired by Victorian wall tiles and trips to Marrakech.