cotton prints

if france is the land of the wall decal, the america is the home of the quilt. im sure thats why there are so many great fabric designers in the U.S , because of the popularity of sewing.

hence american readers will be familiar with amy butler's designs, but those in the UK may not,(over here we dont really have quilt shops, etc). take a look at the beautiful designs on display here, i love the way amy uses colour, she has come up with some really original colour combinations. check the website here for great designs, sewing projects, and cool photographs taken by amy's husband.

art

an emulsion on canvas painting by dan baldwin. one of the many artists on sale at britart.com.

french fabrics

great prints by french designers 'maison georgette'. founded in 1999 by marion levy & veronique georgelin, maison g have their own silk screen workshop where they can experiment with their ideas and create these brilliant designs.

fabrics

textile designs from michael miller fabrics. above - sophisticated black & white, and below - bold florals. browse the collections for more prints.

stickers

more great wall decals ,this time by sofia antonovitch ( discovered via imedagoze). its not that im obsessed by the idea of wall stickers, its just that i enjoy seeing all the different types of motifs people come up with. sofia's are very girly/boudoir in style.

a new bag

today im really thrilled as i have a new bag - and its by my favourite designer orla kiely.

the quality of her bags are brilliant, as is the detailing - the lining has a one colour stem print to compliment the bright multi-coloured one on the outside. this design is really her signature print, for me its classic orla, so it wasnt hard to choose which design to buy.

orla kiely fabrics

the new bag is the perfect excuse to post orla kiely prints - well we havent done it since april. just a selection of various designs - some current & some archive. one thing i havent mentioned before though is did you know that you can buy orla fabrics by the metre for making your own creations ? i didnt until recently - but here they are ( above) £35 mtr from tinsmiths.

plates

bold floral prints on tableware from pierre frey.

french fabrics

after yesterdays fifi french designs - today ive been investigating some more, these fabrics are from mes habits cheris. mainly used on clothing, bags, and aprons i thought some were really quite original - like the squiggle design above for example.

french wall decals

another fine example of french wall stickers - can there be any other country in the world where decals are so popular ?. these are taken from the catalogue of les louisettes where they've come up with some really interesting motifs.

french fleurs

whilst on the subject of french wall decals - its a good time to show these examples. i first read about these designs on imedagoze's blog. great flowers and a trendy bird on branch design.

by fleur de kookyse.

french patterns

i cant pretend i know too much about this designer as all the information is in french, but i do know they have produced some wonderful little designs on lanterns, cards, & badges. check out the cute site of fifi mandirac for lots more style.

harlequin

beautiful wallpaper patterns from harlequin.

saturday = shopping

patterns spotted this saturday include melamine picnic plate from tesco (above) and cool print on a skirt from white stuff (below).

above various fashion prints - below notebooks from paperchase & accessorize.

greek bedlinen

i spotted an ad for kentia bedlinen in the greek domino magazine and thought some of their designs were interesting. the colour palette is a lot brighter than that of the UK, but im guessing thats to do with the weather. there are some nice motifs though.

back from holidays

well here i am back from athens - and ive arrived home to a huge backlog of work, hence the delay on returning to P+P. ive collected a few patterns on the trip which i thought i'd post here, before resuming normal service next week. starting with these lovely greek ceramic coasters i purchased in athens. lovely traditional patterns and they cost just 1 euro each.
some of the other coasters on sale.

magazines

a couple of greek magazines i picked up to check out the design scene, unfortunately it seems its not the done thing in greece to publish website addresses as we do, only phone numbers. still i'll go through them and report any interesting stores i can find. if anyone knows any good greek websites i'd love to hear about them.

athens patterns

a selection of bright & funky designs seen whilst on holiday, mainly on sun hats and bags.

ancient paintings

as you know i usually cover contemporary bold patterns, but i hope you'll allow me to indulge myself just this once with my holiday patterns. these are ancient greek paintings , but i think they can still offer inspiration to us modern designers as they are so stylised.

museum pieces

you may be able to draw inspiration from these ancient museum pieces. im thinking of doing something with the spiral design (top right) as very cleverly it has no joins and is continuous. similar to the greek key effect, known in greece as 'meander'.

p.s sorry the pictures are quite dark but the museums are dimly lit to protect the pieces.

summer holiday

summer is here and its holiday time ! thankyou to everyone who has been reading print & pattern over the last 4 months, and special thanks to people who left such great comments.
im off to athens now until 22nd june, and im also touring around ancient greece (delphi, olympia etc). im not sure what to expect as its my first visit to greece, but if i see any good patterns whilst on my travels rest assured i will report them here upon my return. hope to see you all here again soon.

swedish textiles

if you love pattern then chance are you love swedish designed textiles. this great selection of tea towels and table linens, etc, are from form & design. check their inspirational website for the full collection of fantastic designs by ulrika elofsson.

card designs

a selection of bold and colourful cards from the art group. the bottom four use a great teqnique of 'contained pattern' a really useful idea for designers. just choose your motif and fill them with your imagination.

fabric swatches

whilst im away i just wanted to post these lovely denyse schmidt fabrics just to admire & inspire.

vintage pieces

these vintage pieces were spotted on corolla cream

stylish site

iggloo is good little shopping site for contemporary homewares. plus they are stockists of mibo whom i know lots of us bloggers are very fond of.

allegra hicks

this sweet little print on a washbag is a freebie with this months red magazine - designed by the brilliant allegra hicks.

contemporary cloth

theres some good browsing to be had at contemporary cloth.

swedish site

i dont know very much about these designs which are all taken from bluebox, as all the text is in swedish.

i thought these key caps were very cute and ideal for all pattern fans. and below the elephant trays are a great inspiration for childrens design.

summer prints

a few patterns seen on skirts by saltwater - they have a real seaside summer holiday feel.

kitchen brights

i saw these bright prints on melamine trays in a local cookshop and made a note of the name so
i could check them out later. turned out to be a german company called remember products.

printed bags

these lovely linear patterns featuring outline drawings of shoes are from gee how quaint.

swedish style

a selection of patterns seen on the swedish website dixie. printed doormats are really popular at the moment and they have a very stylish collection.

notelets

an interesting collection of floral notelets by sarah hough. i really like the way on the peacock feathers one the same colour is used in diffrent tints from dark to light.

wall decals

wall stickers seem to be very popular in france, and with these designs from domestic featuring on the cover of last months elle deco they could be set to take off here in the uk.

surface pattern designs

i thought i'd have a bit of a ceramic day today starting of with these pieces from debenhams.

the colours are a little dull for my own taste but it shows how red has become a big trend in tableware. i am a big fan of the black & white linear look though, and this is quite a delicate example.

retro kitchen

nigella lawson's retro print range as seen on cool, calm, collected.

rachel barker

simple but beautiful - the best way to describe these ceramic designs by rachel barker.

ceramics

contemporary designs by sara taylor. sara first exhibited at new designers in 2005 and has now launched a great range of tableware. i love the colours on the dahlia range shown at the top of the post, the strong black contrasting with the fresh blue & mint green.

shopping sunday

after yesterdays lack of store visits today i had to get out there and take a look around. this is my last week at work before a holiday so i had to buy a few things. . whilst out and about i saw a nice print (above) on a skirt by jasper conran.

two bag prints seen in tk maxx the first one labelled joanna hall but looking very orla kiely inspired and the second a smart idea for mosaic.and a gift bag from woolworths.

store report

next up is a collection of prints sneakily snapped today in cargo homeshop.

also seen

also seen today were ceramics above from laura ashley and an assortment of prints below

english fabrics

unfortunately there is no 'saturday equals shopping' post today as ive been to the opening weekend of 'evita' in the west end and couldnt do any store visits. instead ive had a look at these sweet little fabrics from rosa blue. i loved the design above, it looks really interesting in the way that there are all the little patterns inside the shapes as well. the bunting below is a nice way to show fabric collections for sale, and polka dots and paisley designs are in big demand in the uk at the moment.

finnish fabrics

these designs from ivana helsinki show how patterns can be created from a wide range of motifs.

even the simple sketch of a car can become a great textile design when put into an interesting repeat. and as for the birds, what can i say , the motif of the moment !

rug designs

bright, fun, geometric rug designs from stockwell carpets

casa & ideas

i heard about chilean company casa & ideas when one of their designers andrea left me a message inviting me to take a look. andrea works in the table & kitchen dept with 5 other designers ( although they have an amazing 45 strong design team overall ). i was really impressed with their products and it was so refreshing for me to see a retailer that wasnt US or european. here ive picked out some favourites but do have a good look round the website if you get chance.

many thanks to andrea for telling us about her company.

key designers 4...part A

regular readers will know about the series of posts i do on key designers. these are influential designers who have shaped the pattern trends of today. this time im looking at the reason why shadow prints are so popular in the uk just now. well infact there are two reasons one is atelier lzc and the other is tord boontje. first up its french designers atelier lzc examples of whose work are laid out here. most of you will be familiar with their work but i thought it would be nice to conduct a little review and get it all in one place , especially handy for anyone keeping scrapbooks. so take a look at the fabulous designs and we'll pick up again in the tord post in part B.

atelier lzc close up