Have you ever noticed how a simple change to a window’s dressing can affect the whole mood of a room? Or how just the right blinds can offer the perfect casting of light against walls, floors, and furnishings ? If you’ve ever explored the world of customized window treatments, then you already know. If you haven’t, here are a few reasons why you should.
Reason 1: UNIQUENESS
Whether its a Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC), Polyurethane (PU), Thermoplastic Olefin (TPO), Silicone, or another application, to protect your investment and get the longest possible use out of your vinyl / faux leather fabric, it is important to follow the proper cleaning instructions. But before we go into those, lets take a quick look at the difference between each.
Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) is a commodity resin with unsurpassed physical characteristics used for many purposes such as pipe, blood bags, wire cables and upholstery.
courtesy PhotoMix
For many designers, seamstresses and artisans alike, there is something reassuring to be found in shopping for fabric at brick-n-mortar shops where one can actually touch and feel the material. An experience often lost when buying fabric online, but one that textile companies and their marketing teams strive continuously to innovate and virtualize in order to mirror a similar hands-on experience. By capturing high res images of their fabrics, specific filters, consumer friendly navigational tools, and detailed textile information in their descriptions, many top online fabric stores have been able to offer just that. With such bases covered, along with the benefit of direct mail based promotions and FREE shipping oftentimes, fabric shoppers are discovering more and more confidence, comfort and convenience in the notion of online fabric shopping.
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With mandated self-quarantining and social distancing protocols in place extending way beyond borders and well into the summer, many are finding themselves exchanging vacations away for stay-cations at home, spending less by doing more DIY projects, and taking visual and emotional inventory on their new world formerly known as just ‘home’.
Wangari Maathai quilt by Bisa Butler
A native of Orange, NJ, Bisa Butler is an American fiber artist known for her quilted portraits and designs celebrating the lives and culture of African Americans. As a child, she spent her free time first watching her mother and grandmother sew, then being taught by them. She majored in Fine Art at Howard University, where she studied the work of Romare Bearden and attended lectures by prominent black artists such as Lois Mailou Jones. While pursuing a master’s degree, she took a Fiber Art class that inspired her choice of quilting as an artistic medium. After that class, she made her first quilt, a portrait created in homage to her grandmother upon her deathbed. From that point on she turned to quilting full time, and the rest is HERstory.
photo courtesy: andrea piacquadio
With everyone from corporate power players and university professors, to fashion stylists and customer service reps working from home, work place dress codes have taken a bit of a shift from their standard protocol, towards the more ‘comfortable’ casual wear. Who can blame us? We all know how comfortable casual velvet, brushed cottons, jersey knits and stretch fabrics can be in athletic wear, pj’s and yoga wear. Even Vogue Editor-In-Chief Anna Wintour who once professed to never stoop so low as to wear sweats, deigned to be photographed for an article wearing just such a leisure habiliment. Could the professional script on the horizon now be flipped from ‘casual Friday’s’ to ‘casual everyday’? Will the standard ‘dress down’ be the new ‘dress up’? Only time will tell.
After 50 years in business, we’ve had the opportunity to introduce and share fabrics from almost every fabric mill under the sun. While some only print amazing fabrics, others have multiple services that grow like branches from their textile tree. Timeless Treasure is one of them. In the infancy of their cotton line, their design reputation was built on novelty collections. Pigs on motorcycles, rainbow-colored cats and Santa on a surfboard are just a few of the ideas that went from imagination to 100% cotton fabric. In the last 15 years, their collection has evolved and diversified based on their fan base’s needs. As such, we’re dedicating this blog to some of the creative Timeless Treasure craft tutorials they have put together for the DIY home maker, novice seamstress, expressive entrepreneur, and seasoned artisan. Not only are they cute, they’re FREE!
Nigerian face mask fashion
Armored up and blinged out true Nollywood style!
As health officials and government leaders around the globe have been taking precautionary measures to ‘flatten the curve’, fashionistas world-wide have started to fall in line in their own creative way.
What started out as a safety measure, in a seemingly short time, became yet another way to express ones self while aiding in the fight against the spread of COVID-19. And although mostly a trending safety protocol for now, we have a feeling it’s an accessory that’s here to stay awhile. As such, we thought it would be fun to virtually travel around the world for a little inspiration capturing. After all, if it’s going to become part of our daily ensemble, we might as well make it the creative tool of individual expression and fashion it can certainly be.
From 2005 to 2011, Skelanimals rode an ever growing wave of popularity through first, their book, then their novelty items, then their fabric. The adored manifestation of creative brainchild Mitchell Bernal, one of the keys to Skelanimals popularity was their unique mixture of cuteness and edge. Skelanimals are light-hearted, cute and cuddly, never ghoulish or horrifying; irreverent but not offensive. As a result, the characters have been embraced by people of all ages, nationalities, and personalities to this day.
But what inspired the idea for Skelanimals to begin with?
