Fabric Friday!

Happy Friday y'all!

Whew! It has been a week, I've had to haul furniture all over the state this week, several projects are going out to bid and I've just been generally busy. I'm always doing a lot for my business, sometimes it's the fun parts - meeting clients, fabric and furniture selection, space planning, sketching. Usually though, it's the gross parts. You know the ugly "back of house" stuff that has to happen or else the feds will lock you out of your business for tax evasion.

But, since it's Friday, I'm going to talk about the fun stuff. Fabric selection!! YAY!

First things first, when you're trying to select fabrics you need to know the exact purpose of the piece of furniture they're going to be going on. EXAMPLE! Let's pretend we're designing your living room. Is there a sofa? Who uses the sofa? You, your dog, no one? What about chairs? Who uses them? Let's imagine that our dream room is used by you your two dogs and whomever it is that shares your living space. So the furniture needs to stand up to the traffic of everyday use (including the dogs snoozing when you're not home). Is there a window that needs curtains? That's a lot of different fabrics for one space. Sure you could try to use the same fabric for everything, but that's awfully boring.

Modern fabrics are so technical I'm really surprised that they don't fix your coffee for you. (Don't worry, the geniuses over at Google are already working on it. But that's a different story for a different post.) There's a tremendous amount of engineering that's involved in just the fibers. Some even have silver ion technology built into the fiber so that they resist mildew, and other unpleasantness (silver is a natural microbe killer). Then there's how it's woven, or the weave structure. There are SO MANY weave structures that create some amazing textures and patterns. It's really quite fascinating. (If you're looking for more information on weave structures, follow Suzanne Tick, she's brilliant!)

So that's the technical side of the process. When choosing textiles, it's important to start with the technical side of the process. It prevents reselections. Which are annoying.

Cool! With the technical side taken care of we can start to look for inspiration. Look literally everywhere. It doesn't have to be just interiors. Do you have a favorite dress? Favorite album art?

For this post, I'm using this totally adorable woven wall hanging from Etsy maker Mowakke. It's in a range of pinks (my fave) including this years Color of the Year - Living Coral (As a designer I'm contractually obligated to obsess over everything the good folks at Pantone say and do). There's a variety of textures and weave structures. Also LOOK AT THAT POM!!

So, break this weaving down. What do I have? A range of soft, blushy pinks and white being livened up with a bright punch of Living Coral. There's also 4 different textures. We have the herringbone up top, the fuzzy, velvet-eque texture just below that, and the tradition over under tight weave, followed by the layers of fringe at the bottom. Shouldn't be too hard to get this figured out.

What I've selected in this material board is from the top - a big, wool boucle, in our weaving there's a herringbone up top with big fat loops - like a boucle. Hence my pick. Beneath the boucle is a blush herringbone weave. But you already have the wool boucle? Why do you have the pink one as well? Because wool is expensive, and boucles are expensive, so wool boucles are expensive x2. Also boucles are prone to picking, so they aren't great for sofas (they are perfect for pillows though). Below the herringbone is another big texture. Also wool, so we also won't be considering that one for a sofa either, but again - throw pillows. The next blush fabric is actually a faux wool. Which is great, because it bring the coziness of wool but not the price tag. YAY! Another good one for our sofa! The pattern is a great textile, it has an acrylic backing on it to prevent spills from seeping into the cushions of your furniture (gross). Our final fabric on the right is another big texture in Living Coral. This is an inexpensive fabric, with great texture, and an acrylic backing. So it's great for sofas! Yay! The big white fabric beneath everything is a solid that is woven using an over-under weave structure, like in our inspo wall hanging. This is inexpensive and suitable for draperies. So, that will be our curtains.

Girl, what are those not fabric things doing over on the left side of our material board?

Well, it's a material board, not a fabric board. Those are the wood and metal finishes for the legs of the furniture, drapery hardware, drawer pulls, etc. Also a Pantone chip of Living color; there's a lot of muted color in this board and we need some pizzaz to make this space alive!