Here’s how it used to look 3 years ago.
It looks a lot happier than that now but I don’t really have any recent photos to share. The house was built in 1963 and is of a Modernist design – we love it, it’s so unusual for Sussex and we love the space and light. Our last house was a terraced Edwardian town house which was equally as beautiful structurally but completely different! I must say I found our last house very easy to decorate – you could basically do whatever you wanted with it. Want to see some pics? 
Anyway, our new house is much more of a challenge to decorate. I’m not sure why exactly because I understand the style but maybe there are so many choices and approaches that it makes it really hard to decide what to do. The last thing I want to do is fall short of the house’s innate style and create a bland interior. It just wouldn’t do it justice, but I do find (she whispers) modern architecture sometimes hard to live with 365 days a year.
I need to soften it, make it unique and personalise it. And what better way to do that than with some wall hangings from my trusty loom!
So I’ve been researching Modernist patterns, prints, colours and shapes. I’ve realised that Amish quilts are very inspiring – just typing ‘Amish quilts’ into Google images brings out masses of fantastic colours and designs like this one from this web page.
I’ve got lots more reference pics stored away but as I haven’t saved the sources with them I might get into trouble if I show them here.
How all of this is going to manifest itself in a woven wall hanging I don’t yet know but what I do know is that this is probably the biggest weaving challenge I’ve so far assigned myself.
Posts
I think the modernist style looks good with Scandnavian style fabrics, do you get Vav Magasinet? Loads of interesting ideas there. Toddmorden Books had some back issues in stock October '09, don't know if they would still have them. (I bought a few!) Other sources of Scandinavian weaving ideas are the books by Malin Selander and The Big Book of Weaving by Laila Lundel and Elisabeth Windesjo.
ReplyDeleteI love your house pictures! I've never seen a house like that really. The contemporary houses around here are from the 1970's and are usually wooden with all kinds of unusual rooflines and angles. Very cool!
ReplyDeleteI'll be really interested to see what you end up doing with wall-hangings! Those Amish quilts seem like great inspiration.
I have one giant wall I'd love to hang something fabric on also. I'm thinking of nuno-felting something...and hope to finally do that project this spring. I say that every year....but maybe 2010 really will be the year for it!
Looking forward to what you come up with! Good luck!!
Sue
Your old house looks lovely! I know what you mean about decorating modern houses - maybe it's to do with there being less features already in place to work with. Looking forward to seeing what you make for the walls of this one! :)
ReplyDeleteI love your modern house! I wish it were mine. Well, it isn't. What about weaving linen hanging pieces, Finnish and Swedish style? Soften the light, and the space, with light loving textile. The reason the Scandinavians love to weave linen, I think, is so they don't go mad with the long, dark winters
ReplyDelete