As winter comes to an end and we start to see the first signs of spring, it is not an exaggeration to say that my cashmere scarf hasn’t left my neck for past few weeks! I thought it would be good time to tell you a bit more about the story behind the designs. They make excellent gifts as they are pieces you would truly keep for lifetime, and are so fine they can be worn year round.
They are all printed and dyed in Nepal by Rabrindra’s family business. I first met him about 8 years ago as he had a stall in Spitalfields market in London, and I got chatting with him as I was admiring his beautiful hand made products that he had brought over in a suitcase from Nepal. Always one to spot beautiful craft when I see it, we soon established that he could also dye and make scarves for me, and I am now into my 7th year of selling them very successfully.
Artists Stripe
This Artists Stripe is from a watercolour striped painting I created for my fabrics collection. I love the jewel colours mixed with the muted parchment tones. We decided it would look fun if we really enlarged the scale, which completely changes the feel of the design.
Tania’s Garden
Tania’s Garden is now so famous I hardly need to tell you about it again! Tania has the most incredible garden that I am lucky enough to visit a few times a year, and even though I have been visiting it for over 20 years, I am still in awe every time I see it. In the late summer her borders are a tangle of cardoons, teasels, dill seed heads and verbena. I have gathered and photographed so many plants from her garden that I pretty much designed my entire fabric & wallpaper collection from the stalks and seed heads I plundered.
Cyanotype
The Cyanotype scarf is inspired by the photographic process where paper is coated with a light sensitive paint and then exposed to the sun. It is usually a distinctive blue colour with white negative images. In this particular design we used the branches from a Peony bush, Hydrangea flowers, and an assortment of leaves such as Ginkgo and Maple.
Rue
The pretty Rue is a classic print of mine, and I think it might be one of my oldest and most successful designs. It originates from the leaf of the Thalictrum plant, which also has the most exquisite flowers. I think I may have actually found this plant it in a garden centre about 25 years ago! The scarf comes in 5 colours, testimony to how well it sells as it is so easy to wear.
Kaleidoscope
The Kaleidoscope design was put together using the silhouettes of the most incredible ferns collected in Costa Rica. This scarf is quite a mash up, as the pattern within the leaves comes from our Serendipity design, which we played with on Photoshop and produced this rather psychedelic result which I love!
Kismet
Kismet is loosely based on the random prints which accumulate on our studio backing cloth. After hours upon hours of screenprinting in the studio, the calico which covers our print table ends up covered with a serendipitous array of leaves, vines, stems and flowers in zesty, rainbow hues, resulting in pure painterly magic. The Kismet clay pictured above has been flying out – maybe I should ditch the brights colours altogether (never!)
