Stories Behind The Designs – A Family Affair
Some fabric companies use vintage, often archived designs as inspiration, reproducing and re-colouring them. The V and A has a wonderful collection of fabrics from the last few centuries which are a rich resource for all. Beautiful old fabrics come up for sale at auction houses and even car boot sales; Cath Kidston sourced some of her designs from old eiderdowns… Another approach is to task specialist designers to come up with ideas or ask other artists and crafts people to create designs..
At Vanessa Arbuthnott it’s just me and occasionally my family, which is why the designs are quite simple…we can’t think beyond 3 or 4 colours!
I use many different mediums: pencil on tracing paper, lino printing, or paper cutting; all of which reveal their own distinctive marks. For example: My Fruit Garden and Up in the Air designs were created by cutting paper shapes, for Cow Parsley and Up the Garden Path it was pencil drawing and for Life and Eternity Detail, Simple Ticking Detail, and Herbaceous Border, lino and wood block.
Here’s a little history behind some of my designs…
Gypsy Garland and Up the Garden Path – Vanessa
Both of these designs were inspired by a visit to Stockholm in Sweden.
I first saw the trailing leaves depicted in my Path design on a beautiful vintage linen skirt worn by someone. It wasn’t until I returned home that this visual memory became the beginnings of a new design.
Similarly, the emblems in Gypsy Garland mirror indigenous Swedish design and can be found on fabrics and even in their architecture.
Gypsy Garland
My Traditional Sofa: a timeless comfortable sofa available in three sizes. It comes with a choice of tapered or turned legs, and also back cushions for extra comfort.
Up the Garden Path
Dusky Pink / Day Lily / Saffron
Pigeon / Light Lichen / Duck Egg
Smoke / Teal / Soft Cornflower
This design, with its contemporary design, creates a real statement in your no matter what you have it made into. Ranging from cottage settings through to more modern town houses, this never fails to impress! The images above showcase how bold the blocth coloured fabrics can form the basis of any design scheme in your room, which allows other fabrics to work cohesively from.
Fruit Garden
This design from my Orchard Collection was directly inspired by a course I joined during a Lucienne Day exhibition in Cirencester. The morning course took a close look at Lucienne’s famous mid-century designs and then we set about with scissors and paper to make our own patterns and marks.
Damson, Light Kale, Winter / Peach, Smoke, Winter / Buttercup, Clay, Winter / Powder Blue, Pigeon, Charcoal
The Fruit Garden is a multi-coloured, soft geometric trellis design. The matching pair of elegant Traditional Sofas in the Damson are a perfect match to the green soft furnishings and wall paint. Smoke and Soft Teal blues on the other hand are a great balance for the Peach Fruit Garden.
By the Sea – Nicholas
The Artists’ Collection is the result of a huge family effort. One New Year’s Day I had a fall, leaving me with two broken wrists, making it impossible to hold a pencil. I worked with my husband Nicholas, curating his sketches and translating them into workable patterns and scales. Finally, I was able to enjoy the last part of the process: choosing colours for the new designs, to pull them together and enable them to sit comfortably with my other collections.
My husband designed this wonderful seaside print which I have called ‘By the Sea’.
In Nick’s own words: ‘By the Sea’ was inspired by my early childhood in Solva and visits to Mousehole and St Ives. I delight in coastal towns with their cosy harbours and brightly coloured cottages, nestling behind little pathways that snake between terraced gardens and climb up the hillside.”
Scree, Charcoal / Teal, Charcoal / Saffron, Charcoal
Bird Hop, In Full Flight and Branching Out – Flora
These designs were created by my younger daughter Flora, who is a print maker, forager, and natural dyer, inspired by wild plants and natural forms, birds, and creatures.
Flora says: “I grew up in the countryside in Gloucestershire and was taught to paint and print by my mother when I was a child. I then moved away to study product design at Glasgow School of Art. Following this, I sought to reconnect with my roots and with the natural raw elements of where the materials of my work come from. I was drawn to Devon to study permaculture and wild plants. My interest in plants and fungi go beyond colour. I love to forage for food and make herbal medicines. To be wild is to know how to look after ourselves. To be in relationship with the plants growing around us intimately. There are no weeds, only medicines, foods, dye plants, and craft materials. Being with the flow of the seasons.”
Flora runs inspiring online courses as part of her ‘Plants & Colour’ page: for more of an insight into her work, please visit her Instagram account.
Bird Hop print depicts a characterful and friendly bird. She created this shape by cutting with a craft knife straight into a piece of paper without drawing first…resulting in this crisp, spontaneous result.
Branching Out and In Full Flight are two more bird print fabrics inspired by screen printing with paper cut outs. Each depicts flying stylized birds set within a leafy trellis. Flora: “I find it inspiring to walk along hedgerows watching birds fly down to eat the blackberries and gather twigs for their nests…”
LEFT: Hanging in the middle of the room, and added some much needed colour, is a lovely Smoke blue lampshade, followed with the beautiful single curtain, which is the best pattern to go alongside these natural textures within the room!
In Full Flight
Damson, Winter / Powder Blue, Charcoal
A wonderful Made to Measure interlined single door curtain on a portiere rod that fits to the door frame and door. See how the Powder Blue instantly lifts and brightens this space! A single width curtain with heavy bump interlining, traps layers of air to help with insulation and helps keep draughts at bay. The Damson is the first colour you see in this wonderful collection of cushions; perfect for entertaining.
Branching Out
Our very useful and compact Cube Footstool is covered here in the Teal colour. A place to sit and read your book with a cuppa; it’s great for children too!
Wild and Free – Rose
An enchanting animal fabric: Quirky, light-hearted and fun from my Birds and Beasts Collection. Wild & Free is a whimsical depiction of magical wild animals designed by my daughter, Rose. Printed in the UK on a 100% eco Linen. This design also saw the introduction of some beautiful colours: Tomato, Terracotta, Saffron, Kale, Smoke, and Limestone.
Rose says: “I started designing ‘Wild & Free whilst on a course at the British Museum. I walked around the corner to a wonderful art shop called Cornelissen & Son, bought a set of giant colouring pencils and started drawing images of animals in the museum. I drew a bull from a 4th Century BC Etruscan vase and more magical creatures from ancient cave art illustrated on some shamanic cards. I feasted on 7th Century BC Assyrian relief carvings of deer hunts and then went on to draw the African inspired Acacia tree.”
Terracotta, Charcoal / Saffron, Dormouse
Kale, Charcoal / Limestone, Soft Charcoal
The illustrative designs on Wild and Free is a great talking point, and you can include it on anything you want! With a horizontal pattern, it is however, perfect for headboards, blinds, footstools, quilts, and drum lampshades, all of which we can hand craft for you as part of our Made to Measure service!
For the Love of Rose – all of us!
This design encapsulates a truly romantic story about a Bohemian couple living in a shepherd’s hut…this beautiful, romantic fabric collection is a family affair and was inspired by my eldest daughter Rose’s drawings of a goat trying to reach up to eat the last green leaves on a tree, along with my youngest daughter Flora’s passion for a simpler way of living and permaculture. A true team effort, it was designed during the time we were running an artist’s residency in part of our house. I laid a large piece of paper on a table in our hall and invited the artists to draw with me. They loved the story of the free-spirited couple and drew the chickens, goats and vegetable garden.
I have a very talented friend Carolyn Horton who is a print maker, who set about drawing the trees; we then cut them out of lino and printed them onto paper to make those beautiful marks. I drew the shepherds hut and people. What fun it all was…lots of conversations and ideas shared. I called it ‘For the Love of Rose’ because Rose my daughter is a someone who loves to explore and travel…she even walked from our house here near Cirencester all the way to Solva in Pembrokeshire, sleeping in barns and her tent…carrying everything on her back.
Clay, Damson /Saffron, Charcoal
The lounge is quite dark, but the Clay and Damson helps brighten up the space and tie in with the lighter colours seen on the table and weave on the rug. A lovely Rounded Headboard in the Saffron colour, which has an expertly applied contrast piping in Plain Linen Union – Charcoal. This colour ties in with the line work on the main For the Love of Rose fabric; a subtle but beautiful finishing touch!
We sell fabrics exclusively designed by Vanessa Arbuthnott, along side small, bespoke collection of Made to Measure items which includes curtains, blinds, sofas, footstools, chairs, headboards, and quilts, all handmade specially for you by master crafts people.
