Easy Peasy Wall Art Revisited

Creating Easy Fabric Wall Art

One of our more popular blog posts was a DIY Tutorial from 2011: EASY PEASY WALL ART.  We shared and demonstrated how to attach fabric to an old or used canvas, as shown below.

This past week we shared our crafting knowledge, skills and tools with two young roommates furnishing their first college apartment.

Their fabric choice: "In Crowd" by Alexander Henry.  Quite "hip", isn't it!

Using a canvas they purchased for $3, they got right to work with the staple gun and scissors.

 Stretch, smooth, staple, stretch, smooth, staple, cut and repeat....

Picking Daisies was quite a center of activity and creation that day...

And Voila!  Easy Peasy!  Here they are, showing off their finished product, though there was some attempt to upstage the faces on the fabric.

It's at home in their apartment now - just look at this stylish hallway!

Liberty Lifestyle Fabrics - Stile Collection

Liberty of London's latest Lifestyle Fabric Collection

Stile Liberty

In 1875, Arthur Liberty opened his shop Liberty of London on Regent Street, based in the West End shopping district of Central London and began selling the first of the soon to be famous Liberty silks. 

By the 1890's Liberty Art Fabrics were a byword for the best of "Avant Garde" textile design.

Today Liberty of London is best known for their floral prints and their lovely, lightweight, semi-sheer 100% cotton (expensive) Tana Lawn fabric.  Their classic prints never go out of style and their new prints are always fashion-forward and interesting. 

In early 2012, Liberty of London jumped into the quilting market and recently launched their second collection of Liberty Lifestyle quilt-weight, and affordably priced, 100% cotton.

The Stile Collection which has been inspired by the Art Nouveau movement and also more specifically by the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. 

Stile - Colorway A

This line of fabric is absolutely gorgeous, both in design and quality.  In the photo below are all the fabrics after washing and drying - we can't get over our beautiful they look and feel after laundering.

At Picking Daisies, we are excited to be carrying the Stile Collection in Colorway A (seen above) --plus-- we have napkins too!  See them all online here.


Photos of Liberty of London shop via the Liberty of London website.

Fun with Toweling

It's Not Just For Making Dishtowels!

We've recently begun selling toweling at Picking Daisies.  It comes on a roll and is 16" wide and hemmed all along the width.  The idea is that you can cut it into your desired dish towel size and just hem the ends.

But there is oh, so much more that you can do with toweling.  We've searched the web for you and brought together some of our favorite ideas.

Tea Towel Kitchen Curtains from Apartment Therapy

No-Sew Table Runner from No Minimalist Here

Tea Towels with Ruffle & Ribbon Accent from Sew 4 Home

Dish Towel Pillow from Sew Country Chick

 Twin Duvet Cover from Moda Toweling

 Eight Uses for Tea Towels from Apartment Therapy

We currently have three styles of toweling available at Picking Daisies.  At only $5.50 per yard, imagine the possibilities!

 Red Plaid   -   Yellow Granny Rose   -   Cherry Stripe

Buttery Soft Cotton Voile

It's Irresistible!
Have you been hearing about voile? (pronounced like toile)
Favorite fabric designer Anna Maria Horner has created some gorgeous voiles in the last few years.  She has also written this great informational blog post to explain everything you want to know about using and working with cotton voile fabric.

All the lovely images of voile below are from Anna Maria Horner's site and show various ways in which you can use this soft drapey cotton fabric.

Apparel...

Bedding....

Quilting...

Now that your ideas are overflowing, 

below is the selection of cotton voiles now available at Picking Daisies.

Diamond Mine in Citrus

 Four Square in Sea

Square Dance in Dusk

 Slowdance in Golden

Have you sewn or quilted with cotton voile yet?  What did you think?

Visit Anna Maria Horner's website

A New Quilt at Picking Daisies

Quilter Karen has made us a new quilt!

The new quilt hanging on the wall of Picking Daisies is simply stunning.

In her latest quilt, Karen used sophisticated and contemporary fabrics blocked together in a fun and modular design.

Karen is so skilled at pulling together coordinating fabrics from a range of different fabric collections.

From the above bolts of fabric, she creates this....

Come see it in person and you will see all the intricate stitching she has done around the circles and flowers.  It gives the quilt such wonderful texture.

And YES, it is for sale ....  if you simply must have it for your very own.

 
 Thank you Karen for sharing your quilting skills with Picking Daisies!  We adore you!

-kay and dede

Renaissance Ribbon + Favorite Designers

Embellishing with Ribbon

We were excited to discover that a few of our favorite fabric designers are working with Renaissance Ribbon and producing some quite lovely ribbon.  We now have four spools of these wonderful ribbon available at Picking Daisies.

 Image from Renaissance Ribbon Blog

Style and color seen above and available at Picking Daisies...

7/8" Blue and Pink Zig Zag by Anna Maria Horner

Image from Anna Maria Horner's Blog

Style seen above (left bag) and available at Picking Daisies...

7/8" Turquoise on Green Early Risers by Anna Maria Horner

Image from Anna Maria Horner's Blog

Style seen above and available at Picking Daisies...

1 1/2" Blue Flourish Paisley by Anna Maria Horner

Image from Renaissance Ribbon's Blog

Style and color seen above and available at Picking Daisies...

1 1/2" Paperweight in Orange by Kaffe Fassett

These price of these ribbons run from $4.00 to $6.50 per yard, but you are welcome to purchase them in any sort of smaller lengths you wish.

Click to view all on website

For more ideas and inspiration for using ribbon, visit Renaissance Ribbon's Blog

Celebrate Olympic Style

Go Team USA!

Heading to London for the 2012 Summer Olympics?  If not, you can always cheer on Team USA from home, just as we will be.

Each place at our table is set with an individual Olympic Torch... a.k.a. artfully arranged napkin.

We have wonderfully versatile napkin rings that are styled like tiny picture frames, and therefore perfectly suitable for all celebratory occasions.  For this occasion, we did an internet search for "London Olympics 2012 logos," then found one to fit the shape of our frame and simply printed it from our computer.

 We have brilliant "Olympic Rings" fabric that made fun napkins...

And, of course this perfect "London Subway Underground Map" fabric and napkins....

.

...which might come in handy should you find yourself lost in London.

And you know how we love creating with left-over napkin fabric scraps.  Look at the fabric-covered Olympic Rings we made to hang in our window!

We just wrapped thin strips of fabric around some flat-ring frisbees found at the dollar store.

London's calling and we can't wait to enjoy the festivities while cheering on Team USA!

We have the following Fabrics and Napkins to celebrate London 2012:

Olympic Rings
Underground Subway Map
Town & Country Buses
Town & Country London
British Flag