textiles
photo: courtesy of tillett and rauscher inc
We were instantly smitten with this kitchen, for its spareness and simplicity (on the upper East side of Manhattan no less), but especially for the marble slab table with a rough, unfinished edge. Such a simple detail to leave undone, yet the effect is bold and surprising. It could be done with any stone surface.
It is the vision of D.D. and Leslie Tillett, influential post-war textile designers whose townhouse on the Upper East side of Manhattan served both as family space and workspace for the textile design and printing. They are the subject of a retrospective that has just opened at the Museum of the City of New York. “D.D. liked surfaces to have broken edges. She had a ‘Wabi-sabi’ aesthetic,” says her son Seth in a recent New York Magazine interview.
We’re going to run over and see it as the house appears to be full of adventurous design ideas. In addition to rough-edged table tops… read more…
10.24.12 |
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in cool spaces, copy this!, floors, furniture, hard, inside, materials, paths + processes, people, textiles, why not? |
joel henriques
On the great blog Made by Joel, when we found a post that began: “I was drawing…just for fun.” We love to hear about people experimenting, with no particular destination in mind. In the end, he took one of the drawings and turned it into a little pillow for one of his kids.
He also mentioned his favorite fabric pens
, and we appreciate the tip. Joel Henriques is one of those amazing souls whose advice we always trust. Looking at his improvised drawings, we’re thinking not only pillows, but shower curtains, placemats, window shades, coverlets and beyond… read more…
03.01.12 |
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in d-i-y, elements, kids, materials, projects + play, resources blogs + sites, textiles, tools, why not? |
We had just been mulling how much we HATE the design of shower curtain rings, that make it so difficult to remove the shower curtain for washing. Then we thought: how nice it would be to have shower curtain rings with clips instead of closed loops, so we could just clip up a big swath of fabric.
As often happens when we start to mull a question, an answer appears in our field of vision, like this picture at Plastic Sans of “nouvelle” shower curtain rings made with Ikea curtain clips and binder rings. Great!
(Then we found these stainless steel Ikea curtain clips which come in separate parts – the ring and the clip. We’re wondering if there’s a way to attach the clip part directly to a shower curtain ring…) read more…
02.28.12 |
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in cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, elements, how-to, inside, resources, textiles |
We’ve long been fans of unhemmed linen tableclothes, napkins, shower curtains – a rectangle of pure linen just ripped to leave a raw edge *. We hadn’t though of this swell embellishment: the yarn stitching accentuates the intentionality of NOT-HEMMED in a really beautiful and charming way. read more…
02.20.12 |
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in cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, elements, how-to, inside, materials, resources, soft, textiles |
via modernthread.blogspot.com
We love the way the internet can increase people’s ability to design and fabricate things that have traditionally been the realm of professional designers and manufacturers. Our newest favorite online resource/service is digital fabric printing. Over the past three or four years, a number of online textile printers have popped up, including Spoonflower, Karma Kraft, and Fabric on Demand. While each site differs slightly in what they offer and how they work with you, the general principal remains the same: you pick a pattern or design your own, upload it to the site and select your fabric type and reference colors; then wait for your fabric (or practice swatch) to arrive at your front door.
As always, part of the trick is deciding which service to try. Luckily, Kim at TrueUp did the leg-work for us in 2009, printing the same design with four different companies. (One of them, Eye Candey, doesn’t seem to exist anymore). Her experience is extremely helpful, and includes tips about what file type and image resolution to use, as well as the differences in pigment type and the importance of color-correcting. She also created this handy comparison pdf (updated in March 2010) so you can see the differences between each printer.
If you’ve ever wanted to design your own textiles, it doesn’t get much easier than this. Need some ideas for patterns? We find them everywhere, read more…
02.08.12 |
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in d-i-y, elements, how-to, materials, resources blogs + sites, services, textiles |
The other day, we stumbled on Dargelos, an online store with stylish, thoughtfully-designed products for bicycle riders (some are great for NON bikers as well). We originally went to the site to check out their Lighting Vest, a hand-netted safety vest made from a specially-developed reflective 3M material that will make you highly visible to motorists (i.e. safe.) It is lightweight, can fit in your pocket and layer over just about anything you want to wear. It’s so great looking, we could imagine wearing it just for the hell of it.
While on Dargelos’ site, we discovered many other cool things… read more…
12.07.11 |
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in apparel, family + friends, gifts, inspiration, outside, resources, road warrior, soft, stores, textiles |
We spotted this charmingly painted wall of a Berber house in Ouno’s great post about the beautiful “broken” geometry of Berber rugs from the Beni Ourain region. We were intitially inspired by the idea of chalking or painting an image/pattern like this on the side of ANY building – a sort of mental d-i-y fantasy – when we got blown away by this bit of text about the rugs, which applies to so much else.
“this semi-controlled disorder is said to function as a talisman against evil and as a promoter of fertility. But it also seems to emanate from the nomadic culture’s more general tolerance of uncertainty, nothingness and change.”
The rug themselves offering curiously modernist designs to apply elsewhere, perhaps for painting fabrics, walls or floors. read more…
09.19.11 |
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in copy this!, elements, floors, inside, inspiration blogs + sites, resources, sightings, textiles, walls + windows |
Ambatalia
For some time now, we’ve struggled with the plastic bag problem. Not shopping bags – we’ve got that figured – we just carry a cute fold-up bag in our everyday bag. We’re talking plastic food bags. What is a really feasible bag for collecting messy things like bunches of grapes, piles of cherries or loose mesclun from the market? It needs to not take much room so we can take a bunch with us on our daily forays out, AND be washable.
We love the idea of furoshiki – the Japanese tradition of transforming a big square into all sorts of carrying bags and packages and are inspired by Ambatalia’s transformations of a big square dishcloth. (We found a trove of simple techniques for knotting and folding cloths online). Still we can’t quite imagine ourselves making bags in the heat of produce shopping. read more…
04.13.11 |
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in housewares, kitchen, materials, outside, resources, soft, storage, textiles |
