Soft Furnishings book help

The Clifton-Mogg book is actually very good. It's better on inspirations than on how-tos, but it should give you lots of ideas. Mitchell Beazley imprints are usually good books, with lots of photography and richly illustrated - you really get your money's worth.

Anything by Melanie Payne is usually worth looking at - I muse over her book Textile Classics (Mitchell Beazley, 1990 - ISBN: 0 85533 792 3) a lot for ideas for 'looks'.

Also, for 'how-tos' I like books under the Conran imprint, especially their Household Decorator series of small books. These are the classic Habitat style - modern but friendly. Lorrie Mack is a frequent contributor and her book Chairs, Cushions and Coverings (Conron Octopus, 1986 - ISBN: 1 85029

054 7) is very good. So is The Soft Furnishings Book, by Judy Brittain (consultant editor), (Conran Octopus, 1986 - ISBN: 1 85029 299 X). This covers how to make curtains, blinds, canopies, chair covers, household linen, etc, and has clear line drawings and instructions. The House Book by Conran is good for a general read on interiors.

For books simply to look at (no instructions) try pretty much anything by Thames & Hudson and publications by magazines such as Country Living (The Country Living Book of blah blah...). One very pretty one is The French Touch, which I think is from the pages of House and Garden, or Homes and Gardens (I can never remember which).

Also on this theme, if you like period decorating, search on the name Judith Miller (as in Miller's antique price guide) - she's written a whole bunch of books on period styles, which show good interiors - curtain treatments, colour schemes, etc. Period Decorating by Mary Gilliatt is also very good. Bar none, my favourite decorating book is Colour in Decoration by Annie Sloane. However, none of these books will tell you HOW to make the curtains, cushions, etc, featured - they're strictly for inspiration only.

HTH.

:) Trish

Oh, thank you SO much Trishty :)

I'm familiar with the Mitchell Beazley publisher so I'm happy to be on the right track. The first book that got me yearning was Gilliat's English Country Style, and lately glomming over the curtain books by Caroline Wrey. I'm slowly working up the courage to attempt corona drapery for the bedroom.

I've printed your recommendations and shall be looking them up this evening. Inspiration vs actual patterns is OK. What I've been doing the past year is purchasing certain patterns in the hopes I can convert them into the English style, esp. curtains.

Are you familar with the soft furnishings books by Hilary More or Dorothy Wood?

Thanks again, Rose

Hi, I've spent the last year 'retraining'. After working as a nurse for the last 20 years I'm planning a new career in soft furnishings. I've taken several courses in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, in curtain making, loose covers (slip covers), cushions and blinds. One of the books I purchased which I have found very helpful and recommend highly is 'The Encyclopædia of curtains' by Merrick and Day. The title is a bit of a misnomer because they also include sewing for beds as well as the history of curtains and style and design and a discussion of fabrics. I found the instructions clear and the diagrams good. You can visit their web site at

It's my sewing bible.

"RLK" skrev i melding news:bNeLb.134$ snipped-for-privacy@nwrdny02.gnilink.net...

Hi Rose.

Sorry, no - I don't know those authors, though I see on Amazon they've written loads between them. My collection is a bit haphazard because I used to work near The Observer newspaper and got the pick of their review copies cheap when they'd finished with them. I just bought what came along! I did buy a Lady Caroline Wrey book for my sister, who makes soft furnishings professionally, and she said it was very good. One book I really didn't like was Design and Make Curtains, by Heather Luke (New Holland publishers Ltd, 1995 - ISBN: 1 85368 526 7). It seemed to me to be designed to put you off doing it yourself and hire a professional instead.

What is corona drapery? I don't know that term. Might we Brits know this as something else? The English country house style you like is probably more easily found in books published in the 1980s. Since then styles have changed and got a lot simpler - the chintzes have disappeared and the headings are plainer.

When I need step-by-step instructions for something, my first port of call is still an old sewing partwork I picked up in a charity shop - you know, one of those magazines you collect week by week and put in a binder. Someone had collected all this back in the 1970s, so the styles are well out of date (anyone for brown patchwork bedspreads?) but the instructions are faultless. You might look in a thrift shop for something similar - it's great for kid's toys and clothes too.

I wonder if you might like Sew Vintage by Jennie Archer Atwood (Taunton press). It mainly covers garments, but it has a section on home furnishings using vintage fabrics such as tableclothes and feed sacks (the latter aren't something we get in Yurrup). I think it's a great book and it's given me lots of ideas for using up my stash of old linens. The style is quiet, crisp, clean and feminine, I would say rather than frou-frou.

:) Trish

I love Caroline Wrey's book - it has such nice ideas and clear instructions.

I probably jumbled the phrase... I think the British call them "half testers"? It is a curtain that hangs on a curved molding above and surrounding the headboard. You are right, I'm very fond of the 1980s "laura ashley" style. I want to retain the quintessential English style of florals, perhaps sans ruffles and polished cotton. My home is 100 years old and a hybid (it has been referred to as a Princess Anne Cottage as opposed to the high style Queen Anne houses) but I do not want to replicate Victorian furnishings, just period enough to feel comfortably "worn". Waverly (US) has some traditional furnishing patterns; they are the only ones I've seen that come close.

Am I getting OT here? I cannot find a forum to discuss period furnishings.

Thank you. From what I saw at the authors' site, this title is very enticing. I noticed the diagrams for a bay window immediately; that's a plus. Have you attempted bay window furnishing with this book?

Good luck on your endeavors!

No, I don't think we're OT here - this is a general sewing forum, not just garment-making.

Half tester. Now I'm with you.

If you like the Laura Ashley look, you might like Laura Ashley At Home - it's a collection of case studies of all the houses the family have owned (which is more than a few!). She often tested out ideas on her own houses, and there are plenty of good photographs, though no instructions. There are also other decorating books published in association with Laura Ashley - I'm sure a friend of mine used one to decorate her period house. FWIW, though, I used to work at Laura Ashley in Regent Street and I didn't find their fabrics especially good quality. Although reasonably priced compared with Sanderson, etc, they're flimsy and don't wear well.

Most of my florals are from GP & J Baker and Sanderson (sale only!), though you can also get good ones from Jane Churchill, Titley & Marr, Colefax & Fowler etc. Ralph Lauren also fakes up the English look pretty well. As I discovered the hard way, it's worth buying more than you need of a fabric, because styles change and it's so irritating to find you want to cover a footstool, say, and crisp botanicals have been replaced with watercolour prints and you can't get a match. If you want checks, stripes, etc to mix with the florals (verrry English), Ian Mankin fabrics are beautiful quality.

I don't know what magazines you have access to in the US, but in England, you can see good pix of the English floral style in: Country House and Home, Country Living (where it's always summer unless it's Christmas), Country Homes and Interiors, Period House and Period Living (though this is now moving more to 20th century properties). For real ancestral homes - often rather OTT - World of Interiors is a better bet.

:) Trish

No, no - between us, we make just about everything here! And if you pop over to my web site and look round, you will see what I did to a 4 poster bed in a house here in my village that was lived in when the church was built in the 1140's... 100 years old? Oh, a NEW house, then! ;) URL below...

I have the Laura Ashley Book of Bedrooms, which is an 80's book, but might be one for you to look out for in the library. Has some wonderful ideas in, and some that are so OTT that they make you feel ikk! I could scan you a page or two if you can't find it.

There is a Laura Ashley home furnishing books, with instructions for drapes, slipcovers, and pelmets (what we call cornices), among other things. It has lots of rich photos and illustrations, and a pink striped cover. I have it, but can't put my hands on it just now.

Nope. Sewing is still appropriate for the alt.sewing ng!

Karen Maslowski in Cincinnati

...but moderation is called for: she died following a fall downstairs, which rumour had it was caused by tripping over a rug...

And it's expensive for what it is. The wallpaper was AWFUL. And the dress sizes were small.

When did you work there, Trish? I worked just round the corner in Noel Street in 1988.

Sally, not a Laura Ashley gel.

It's called "Laura Ashley's Complete Guide to Home Decorating", by Deborah Evans, Carolyn Chapman, Linda Gray, and Celia Rufey, with a foreword by Nick Ashley. Harmony Books, NYC, 1989. A lovely, lovely book, with lots of idea.

Karen Maslowski in Cincinnati

In England, a cornice is the bit of fancy work that runs round a room where the wall meets the ceiling - also known as coving. What do you call that in the US?

:) Trish

Actually, I had a brain freeze, and what I meant was a valance, which is what we call pelmets. A cornice here is a boxed construction, usually covered with fabric, around the top of a drapery or other window treatment. The cornice you describe is what we would call crown moldings.

I was looking at this book last night, realizing I misspoke in my post. Glad to have a chance to clear this up!

Karen Maslowski in Cincinnati

Ah - divided by a common language again ;) The boxed construction covered with fabric is, in England, a pelmet, unless it comes some way down the window at both sides, in which case it's a lambrequin. The latter often don't have draw curtains but are used on their own.

An interior designer could really get into trouble here.

Still, not as bad as an American woman I saw interviewed back in the 1970s. She had given her instructions for her new house to an architect and they'd agreed the plans, but when she came along to see how the building was going, she thought it was rather large. Turned out she'd supposed he would use centimetres and he'd supposed she meant inches...

:) Trish

Some years ago, I had bought some 90" width Laura Ashley fabric online and feeling quite proud of the "bargain". Then proceeded to use every single inch of the fabric to make bedroom drapes. Imagine my surprise when I was given remnants of the same print to piece a tablecloth -- the selvage had "printed in England", and it had more of a linenweave -- and realized that what I had bought those years ago was more suitable as sheeting (percale?) fabric!

I've purchased mostly online. Sometimes I take my chances. I'd rather pay many times less for fabric with some minor defect at the selvage than shell out $14 to $30 per yard, even on sale. Like to work with mediumweights by Waverly, Schumacher, Richloom. As for the British prints, I love them - Cowtan & Tout, Colefax & Fowler among them, especially anything with the "tree of life" motif - floral repeats connected by veins.

The Period Living & Traditional Homes magazine was a favorite. Glad I kept some of the back issues. Other magazine imports I used to read were British Homes & Gardens, and Country Homes & Interiors. Mmm... the magazines would be a good supplement to the books.

Oh yes, I've been back to your pages many times.... the generous amount of fabric really makes such a difference.

LOL, yes anything from 1870s to 1900s is so OLD over here.

That's fine, just keep the apricot coral colors away from me. The previous owner painted all the walls in that color and while it might have been period, I couldn't help but feel like I was surrounded by fleshy flesh!! YUCK

Bleah, indeed! This house (a mere baby, built in 1928) was coated all over the inside with woodchip paper and Magnolia paint! Oh, except our bedroom, which was painted the colour of an OLD dead plastic dolly! AAAAARGH!

Now our room is the only one left with woodchip, and is pale green, like mint ice-cream. It's going cream later, but without the woodchip! I've been maturing the fabric for the curtains in the loft for a few years!

Hilarious!! That dead dolly color was in our kitchen, east-facing and very unappetizing. It looked like those dolls that have been dragged through the playground one to many times. It's been slightly improved in "batter bowl" green courtesy of Martha Stewart paint. What finally made the kitchen "pop" was the addition of some primary colored fabric. Lace trimmed green floral layered over red gingham. Gingham is my favorite coordinating fabric.