Blue Lizard Textiles

A little glimpse of the tropical garden I made this year - everything is reaching its peak and then fairly soon, plants will die back, go dormant or will be dug up and put to bed in my cellar!

The cushion is a wonderful Swedish fabric called Botanik by the artist Barbro Grytnäs for Mölnlycke Tuppen and you can see the six colourways in the second photo. I knew nothing about the fabric when I first bought it but finally spotted the design in some online Swedish textile archives and the mystery was solved. The textile is the perfect combination of popping colours and abstract design - I’ll pop the link to buy in the comments.

Back in March I posted about this fabric and how I’d sat on it for years and kept forgetting to list it. And tonight finally the listing has gone live!

This means you can go onto my shop on Etsy and order cushion covers in this glorious fabric which has a very interesting history.

It dates from the early 60’s and was one of a series of fabrics produced by Bevis (part of Simpson & Godlee). The company wanted to respond to press claims that UK design was behind the times and this was a great opportunity to showcase emerging talent and prove that buyers didn’t have to turn to the USA or Scandinavia for good contemporary design.

The shortlisted fabrics formed a collection retailing at between 13s 11d and £1 1s a yard and the winner received a £300 bursary with the intention that it be spent on travel to the continent to visit manufacturers and art centres to get new ideas.

In today’s money, the fabric would have cost roughly £19/yard and the prize money was around £5.5k. I don’t know exactly how many years the competition was run but it was at least twice.

So back to this fabric - gorgeous abstract botanical and no guilt at cutting it up as it’s a rather strangely constructed curtain. I don’t know who the designer was but suspect it might be Pamela Kay.

It does look rather lovely on my washing line too - one of my favourite curtain-in-the-garden photos!

You might have spotted these amazing Aquarius cushions in my reel from the weekend - I’ve had the fabrics for long enough and finally have cushion covers listed.

The fabrics were designed by the incredibly talented and prolific artist Jacqueline Groag for John Lewis/Jonelle in the 60s. I’m very fortunate to have these two wildly different colourways (and have a third in storage which may not get cut).

I could talk all night about her work as she’s one of my favourite textile designers but I need to get on and share these photos before I go to bed!

The second last photo is one of her earlier designs printed on rayon (very rare and one of my most treasured fabrics) and the last one is her ‘Pebbles’ design, later renamed to Festival and reprinted by Sanderson in recent years.

I’ll pop the listing links in stories and if you would like to buy a cover at a discounted price I still have the ones I made for the flea market at the weekend (because it was actually a disaster and I barely sold a single thing ☹️). Oh and I have keyrjngs in these fabrics too - please comment if you would like one.

And one day soon I will attempt to write a more substantial post on Jacqueline’s life history and work

Last time I was here at Fromefleamarketandcraftfair a ladybird made itself at home on one of my cushions. Today I have a resident grasshopper and he’s keeping an eye on the neighbouring stall belonging to Rolfey.

Do pop by and say hello if you’re here - you don’t have to be an insect to appreciate vintage fabrics 🦗🐞

In case you missed the reel yesterday, here’s the cushion which took centre stage in our family’s Then And Now photo re-creation!

And it’s listed in my Etsy shop now if you want to step back in time yourself.

Who remembers this fabric from their childhood? It was very popular at the time so I’m guessing there’s a few of you!

I bought this fabric over seven years ago and it’s just as mysterious as the day it arrived. It’s just the best print though, whatever it is and I thought it was time it had some space on the grid again!

My trip to Malvern Flea yesterday was pretty good - met lots of fantastic people then managed to pack up and leave before me and my fabrics burned to a crisp. I think it’s going to take a couple more days to recover from that 4am start though…

I’ve brought a couple of old friends with me to Malvern Flea!

It’s a 4am start tomorrow morning but thankfully my mum lives virtually next to the showground so I’ll be getting a few hours sleep here before making the short but very early drive to the market.

The green cushion is a very retro linen called Gillian by Old Bleach and the blue floral is a gorgeous satin-like fabric with huge rusty flower heads on a teal background. I’m hoping someone will take them home tomorrow and if you want some of your own comment here and I will send you the shop links!

And if you happen to be at the flea tomorrow do drop by and say hello 🌺🍀

*** F A B R I C S A L E T O N I G H T A T 8PM! ***

So Frome Flea didn’t happen today for me - too hot and worried about whether anyone would go.

So instead I’m going to sell some fabrics here on Instagram tonight (Sunday) at 8pm

Set your alarms and notifications!

I’ve got vintage pieces of various shapes and sizes, a few curtains and some lovely scrap bundles too

See you tonight and please tag anyone who is vulnerable to buying fabric they didn’t need 🤣

It only took me six years to get this fabric cut, sewn and listed! It’s a slightly tricky one due to the placing of the flower heads but sometimes you just need to get the scissors out and get on with it!

It’s such a precious fabric - probably 60s, unused and as fresh as the day it was printed.

Interestingly, if I had posted about it six years ago I wouldn’t have been able to even guess at who had designed it, but now I have a bit more knowledge and think it was Pamela Kay. She’s a fabulous artist and I’ve included one of her paintings here - do you think the artistic styles match?

You can order a cover from my Etsy shop - just head to the link and you should find it on the main page 🌻

I’m not sure if anyone recalls this amazing fabric but back in 2022 I bought this incredible curtain made in a fabric called Caprice by Pinewood. It had some fade and wear to the very edge and the pattern looked great at cushion size so it was cut. A few orders later and I had sadly run out of fabric and so that was the end of that.

Until that was a few days ago when I was still sorting through boxes of long-forgotten fabrics and what do I find? The second curtain! Turns out it was a pair and somehow they got separated and the second one forgotten about so this fabulous mid century moonlit abstract fabric is available again to order as cushion covers.

You should be able to find it in my Etsy shop or just search on Etsy for ‘caprice cushion’ and it should appear if you would like to buy one. There’s 6 available and after this I really will have run out of this wonderful fabric!