SALE!

This weekend is the Hebden Bridge Open Studios and I'll be having my annual seconds sale in my studio for people who are close enough to visit.

For far away friends there will be 20% off everything on my website 7th, 8th. 9th July so if you fancy a lamp, some fabric, wallpaper, cushions or even an upholstered chair this weekend would be a good time to make a purchase. 

Just use the code 'open studio' at the checkout for your discount.

There are 90 artists in the open studio trail this year. It's going to be good!

Charlotte's Garden production day

Yesterday was production day at the factory for my new Charlotte's Garden wallpaper. 

I'm always a bit awestruck by the huge machine that it is printed on.

We watched as the deep blue ink was siphoned out of the huge buckets and into the trough with my gravure cylinder in it.

It winds through the machine so fast 

and ends upon this huge 150 metre long roll.

I love the suction wall which holds the paper while you check that the design/colour is working. It's always the first moment of seeing it over a large expanse at the proper scale.

So I have my three colours...

The green is called 'Heath'..

The soft grey is called 'Mist'.

and the blue is called 'Inkwell'.

They are currently being packed and labeled and rolls will be available after the 15th July.

Samples will be available on my website right now.

I'm as happy as this printing machine :)

Charlotte's Garden colour day

Yesterday we went to the wallpaper factory to colour test my Charlotte's Garden design. 

My papers are printed with a gravure cylinder which is where the design is etched into metal. 

It's always lovely to see these cylinders. They are works of art in themselves.

This is Shane, our colourist, hiding behind the print machine. He also worked on the colours for Paper Meadow so it was nice to work with him again.

Ahead of time I give him some rough ideas of what I would like to achieve with my colours and on arrival we are greeted with a few first go's as a jumping off point.

Throughout the course of the day we gradually refine the colours. A little warmer, cooler, greyer, dirtier, brighter, up, down, thicker or thinner.

It's incredible as all the colours are mixed by hand. A squeeze of yellow, a squeeze of blue, a blob of red. he is highly skilled and can find the colours you want just by showing him a photo or a paint chip.

The colours are mixed in paper cups

and the ones we like are diligently stored and recorded on these test cards.

I wanted to find a rich green like the ones used on all the Bronte Parsonage products so we played around with that first.

My Mum had the idea of creating a blue, like you find on cyanotypes ( I made some years ago using the same fritillary motif) and we refined that until we found a blue which I loved. It has a cyanotype feel with all the silhouettes in different tonal varieties. It was my favourite of the day. I'm going to call it 'Inkwell'. It is Bronte inspired after all.

Then I wanted to create a soft mid grey and we spent a lot of time experimenting with that playing with the subtleties of different greys.

We also hit upon a much softer green which still fits in with the Bronte products but is much softer on the eye.

By late afternoon I had found the three colours that I set out to find but with some time left to spare we experimented with some yellows too.

I really like the yellow and I love how it sits with the grey and the blue but I'm not sure I will take it to print.

I'm very excited to go back to the factory for the print day on the 28th June. 

Janine's Summerhouse

Illustrator Janine Sommer, from Berlin just sent these lovely photo's of her newly decorated summerhouse.

 She used my Daisy Meadow wallpaper in moonrise.

Her garden house is around a hundred years old and is in a community of gardens in Berlin. They have had the garden for the last five years and have completely re-designed it. The house was the last thing to be updated.

 I remember visiting one of these community gardens when I was on a German exchange at school. My friend Julia's garden was on the outskirts of town and we spent a wonderful day there playing out while her parents tended to the garden. It was a novelty to me having a garden a drive away from home.

How wonderful if you have a gorgeous little house to enjoy too. I think I might want to be in my garden house all the time.

Paper Meadow Chair

Since creating my fabric I have had a few vintage chairs re-upholstered in it but recently I have found a guy who can actually make the chairs from scratch. I find that soooo super clever!

The first one is made from Paper Meadow fabric in blush and Sarah Mason took some really lovely photo's of it last week.

From the front,

from the back

and from the sides :)

I'm just straightening out my prices but will be offering these for sale in any of my fabrics on my website very soon!

Happy Birthday Charlotte

I had fun last night at The Bronte Parsonage Museum doing the 'Meet the Maker' night.

It was good to see all my Charlotte's Garden products displayed in the shop for the first time and it's great to hear that they are selling well.

I met some lovely people and a cute dog called George.

Charlotte kept an eye on things. She had a keen eye for nature (have you seen her flower paintings?) and I'm sure she would appreciate my designs!

Today it is her 201st birthday!

It felt fitting to sign off the proofs of my new wallpaper design on the eve of Charlotte's birthday...and even more fitting to sign them with a green feather quill!

Happy Birthday Charlotte x

High House Wallpaper India Collection

When I gave a talk to the MA Creative Futures students at Stafford Uni recently I met a couple of enthusiastic students who were working on the High House Wallpaper India Collection crowd funding campaign. High House Wallpaper is supporting designers from Uni to real world industry and want to give young designers the opportunity to see their designs come to fruition. 

This India collection brief was shared through design schools in Stafford and India and Mallika Gupta and Joanna Mathias were the winners with their two beautiful patterns.  The way that they sit together is purely coincidental which is rather cool.

Anyway their designs are being prepared for production and now they need to raise the funds....

Checkout their crowdfunding campaign on Indigogo and support them if you can :)