Wednesday 8 September 2010

Musings on colour choices

As you know, I love bright fabrics patchworked together.
Never miss a chance to put purple and orange together
But I’m also trying to experiment with more muted colours. This is a cushion cover made of recycled ties.

It’s mostly grey and navy silk fabric with a tiny print, with that stripe of red in there to liven it up a bit. Does anyone remember there was a year in the nineties when some designer or other decided we would focus on Texture not Colour, and the shops were full of grey? Because we were all supposed to be wearing grey cashmere and possibly a bit of grey jersey if we were racy? If you’ve seen Ab Fab, you might remember the minimalist couple who design Edina’s kitchen: we were all supposed to look like that. Only in grey. No, the nineties were not a good decade for fashion as there is a limit to what anyone can do with a redefined classic white tshirt and a black nylon bumbag. Anyway, it didn’t work and I think Marks and Spencers made a loss of some shocking amount because nobody bought anything, and so they became quite cross, and that was the end of grey, and the death knell for Urban Minimalism, it was rung. It was rung comprehensively.

Well I lived through that and I still love grey. It’s hard to put me off things, you know. It needs dedication. Sometimes it practically needs a sledgehammer.

6 comments:

AC said...

Mmmm I LOVE purple and orange together.

Marushka C. said...

Great colors! You are making me want to get the sewing machine out to do something other than hemming pants. (I have some fabric that's really similar to the lavender at the top, the one that looks kind of like a watery tie-dye. I wonder what mine wants to be?)

Oh Miss West said...

I'm with Marushka- you are inspiring me. You have a really great eye for putting those colors together.

Anonymous said...

Recycled ties! What a great idea! Especially since most of them in this house NEVER get used!

Beansieleigh said...

Came here by way of reference from Susie, at First Floor Flat (Love her, and love how she designed your blog for you! She did mine too, and I think she is absolutely THE BEST!).. Anyways, it's been a pleasure reading your blog for as far back as I had time to this morning! Loved seeing all your sewing and crochet work.. Got a kick out of your sense of humor throughout... And I look forward to visiting again, so I am now a follower! Nice to meet you! ~tina

Susie said...

Oh thank you everyone, I'm glad you like my cushion cover :-). I was kind of pleased that this one came out with a very, very tiny imperfection which means I can't sell it but must keep it for myself, hooray (sadly I bet the next one will be perfect!).

Thank you Beansieleigh, lovely to meet you too - I shall mooch on over to your blog after dinner! And yes Susie is brilliant, I love how she sorted my blog out!