Art Deco Parrot Blue

My favourite fabric so far is a new version I designed of the Art Deco Parrot, this time in a blue, white and grey colour scheme.

I ordered a yard so I could make a pair of cushions in the cotton-linen blend fabric they offer. Being able to design the fabric myself was great because I actually adjusted the scale slightly so that I could fit two cushions with parrots down the middle of the front and back with just 1 yard.

Here's a picture of the cushions:

I love this fabric, it has a bit of weight to it and the nice feel of linen while the cotton makes it less floppy than pure linen. Incidentally, I also love the new Kona cotton that Spoonflower is now offering for a quilting weight fabric.

So I feel I've finally reached the point where I can design exactly what I want to decorate the home without having to compromise. I'd like to do curtains too, but that's a lot more expensive so it may be a while!

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Art deco parrot

The current Spoonflower contest has been my favourite so far. The theme was Art Deco with a limit of four colours. I was looking through my books and found a wonderful book I actually forgot I had. It's called Art Deco Textiles by Alain-René Hardy. Here's a link:



I've always loved textiles of course, but now that I'm actually designing them I've been revisiting my bookshelves and finding lots of help and inspiration. This book is absolutely packed with full-colour gorgeous pictures of Art Deco textiles. I bought it for the pictures, but I did start to read it as well and learned that Raoul Dufy created over a thousand Art Deco textile patterns. I was interested to learn that because I have always loved his paintings so much.

I also learned that tropical motifs were popular and decided to use that as a starting point for my design. I think the main reason I love Art Deco designs is that flora and fauna is so prevalent and I never tire of a pretty floral fabric or the charm that animals can add to a design.

I was really happy with my design, but after voting today I'm humbled by all the incredible designs this week. You can see them all and vote for your favourites here.

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