Living the patterned life.

I can't get enough of it.

Turned my head to the left while I was writing this, and took a pic of what was next to me on my bedside table. If there’s a pattern going, I’ll have it.

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Just to add insult to injury, I had barely got back to work before what I thought was a cold got worse and I ended up confined to bed/sofa with the flu. I appear to be on the mend but am still awash with phlegm. It’s been quite a week several months year and it’s not even April yet.

I wrote a while ago about how I didn’t have a TV, and felt no need to get one, but thanks to a family technology reshuffle, I ended up with one. I suspect it’s on its last legs, and I was originally slightly freaked out by the blank blackness of it in my living room, but I’m used to it now. My apartment is not blessed with a lot of natural light, and I have a lot of mirrors to counteract that. There’s a natural alcove in my living room where I have a big, battered desk which mainly holds my art supplies, and the TV now replaces a mirror on top of it. Its not at all a focal point of the room, so I can live with it, and I discovered I could quite comfortably sit on my little wooden sofa and watch TV without having to rearrange anything. Or rather, it was quite comfortable until I installed myself and my aching limbs on a small, aesthetically pleasing, badly sprung sofa for an entire day. I kept gazing longingly at the vast pink squashiness of the big sofa on the other side of the room, but didn’t have the energy to move things until the next day, and I quite like the change of perspective now that I have done the swap. Sitting on the pink sofa in its new position, I still have the little sofa and a wall of art straight in front of me, but if I happen to turn my head slightly to the right, I can comfortably watch the TV. Which, to be honest, I have rarely done in the couple of months I’ve had it, but I have very much appreciated it this week.

One thing I did from the sofa sickbed was to get my fabric samples out, because this is my idea of fun. I have a long-term, no-timeline plan to repaint and reupholster, and to that end I compulsively gather ideas. Right now, when very little in my life feels as though it has been under my control, agonising over paint colours and how many patterns to mix in at once is very therapeutic. So I have had samples spread out on the floor for a couple of days, and every so often I tweak. It’s like a giant moodboard, and having it all on the floor of the living room also lets me see what works with what I already have. I do already have a couple of rolls of fabric stashed under my bed, one of which is intended for my beautiful 1930s Swedish chair, so there are some definites.

I find it much harder to commit to plain colours but I have no problem creating schemes which are pretty much all pattern. I commented recently on a post that my bedroom was an oasis of calm, and virtually pattern-free: it is an oasis of calm, but after posting the comment, I then looked around me and counted at least six prints, as well as art on every wall. My idea of minimal calm may differ from other people’s.

I mean, it’s really pink. Plus, you can tell I’m sick, because there are four (4) blankets on it ready to drape over my sniveling self.

In any case, for my floor moodboard, I decided just to group everything that I felt drawn to, and see what spoke to me, rather than thinking about what worked with my potential chair fabric. Much as I love my big pink sofa, I will not reupholster it in the same amazing deep rose pink fabric, because that pink dominates the room. I have loved it for 25 years, but I don’t want to keep working around that pink.

Last time I got all my swatches out, I found myself consciously matching the colours in my chosen print, sometimes pushing them a bit warmer or cooler, and the end result felt pretty, but a bit muted. This time, I found I kept pulling out the deep warm purples (the colour of my bedroom walls), and the scheme, although wildly over-patterned, felt more like me.

And obviously once I was on a fabrc sample roll, I felt the need to order more. Liberty won’t send fabric overseas, but the London family is coming to Italy next week so that we can plant a tree and scatter my father’s ashes in the garden, so I had samples sent to one of nieces. And while I was poring over the website, I noticed that some fabrics were displayed with a combination of others, and that these displays appeared to be far from any formulaic dictates regarding allowed numbers of patterns or colours, and they were, as a result, far more inspirational to me (although, when you look closely, the formula is there: big print, smaller print, prints picking up a limited number of colours from the dominant pattern, geometrics etc).

I am a fearless - some may say reckless - pattern-mixer, and I tend to think that if you love it and it aligns with a general colour scheme, it will work. At least, it will work if you are a pattern-lover. But the point is, these Liberty images spoke to me in a way that many more restrained ones do not, and although I know that many of these fabrics wouldn’t work for me (or, may work beautifully for me but are out of my price range), I loved seeing the juxaposition and the sheer unbridled joy of flinging a load of beautiful fabrics together.

Look here:

and here:

and again.

These are all screenshots from the furnishing fabrics on the Liberty website. Having had quotes just for the work reupholstering my furniture (desperately needed after over 20 years of indoor cats), I’m not sure I’ll be able to indulge in any of my current favourite fabrics, but Liberty is my gold standard for print. As soon as my daughter started putting together my grandaughter’s nursery, I was arranging to get Liberty fabric for the curtains. I’m currently sitting up in bed writing this, wearing a Liberty flannel nightdress, looking at a rail of clothes that boasts at least three different Liberty prints. Whenever I’m in store, I swoon at their incredible printed velvet upholstered furniture; its just a constant source of inspiration.

Having said that, my actual inspiration is as much Designers Guild and Casamance as it is Liberty. I had never heard of Casamance before I started my fabric sample odyssey, but I am weirdly attracted to their very 60s/70s patterns. I say weirdly because it has taken me a long time to find attractive the patterns and forms I grew up with, but now one of my favourite pieces of furniture in my flat is a 1970s chrome and smoked glass desk which I use as a kitchen table, and which was our dining table growing up.

As I said, I have no timeline (and currently no budget) for any changes I would like to make, but looking at these patterns has been therapy recently, and peace of mind for the price of a fabric swatch feels like a very good deal.