1960's to 1970's looks and vibes

Wake up, its the swinging sixties and the groovy seventies and ORANGE has arrived!

There's so much that could be said about these two decades but I'm here to talk about colour and interior ideas so I shall try not to get side tracked and wander off down memory lane.

In 1964 Habitat was born and this was to shape the style of our interiors and create trends and desires for objects that were new and cool. Conran bought us the Duvet, paper lantern lampshades, the wok and the chicken brick. Here in the UK we now had our own trend leaders; Mary Quant gave us legs with her hot pants and mini skirts, modeled by Twiggy, Vidal Sassoon supplied the wedge bob hair style and everyone wanted to drive around in a new Mini car. The Brits were fashion leaders with The Beatles flying the flag for Brit style.

The patterns in wallpapers and fabrics were verging on the psychedelic, large rounded motifs in shades of orange, yellow, mustard and brown. During the 60's the department store Heals were commissioning some iconic designers like Peter Hall and Barbara Brown to produce fabrics with big stylised shapes in rich deep teals and emeralds. But it was orange that really hit big and if you want to replicate this era then its an absolute must to include. 

Habitat, not surprising considering its history, still do the best hues of orange, mustard and green in paint to replicate the sixties to seventies time. And they also still sell beautiful lampshades made of paper and have even reintroduced the chicken brick.

Another great place for getting items that fit the look is IKEA. During the sixties and seventies we began to see Scandinavian influences appear more and more, these shapes can still be found at our favourite Swedish superstore who have built their name on affordable design, primarily using wood which is a large resource in Sweden.   

There were some other colours apart from orange and brown, a sage green, olive is the best description and it was frequently used in excess, almost in saturation in some homes. If you find yourself some vintage Hornsea ware (kitchen jars and cups) then these colours give you the right idea.

A few years ago a friend and I made-over a bachelor pad in north London. The flat was in a building that was a design icon, the architect being Peter Tabori and built in the early seventies. So taking that as an influence we wanted to bring a bit of cosy and warmth to the owners rooms, adding fur rugs, pampas grass and voile curtains in cream and brown, while keeping to the building's era.

As we move into the seventies things tone down a bit, the colours become more muted and a reaction to all the plastic was a fashion for more natural materials like wicker and rattan. Brown and corduroy on clothes and furniture and a back to the earth approach came along with lots of house plants. Hessian even featured as a wall covering, and it was murder to remove!

I've made a pinterest board that features both authentic photos and current products that will help you pull this fab look together (double click for the link direct to the product). Homebase stock Habitat paint and their products are all available on line, some of their furniture is influenced by 70's designs like the Tisno chair. 

Other touches that will help you create an authentic look would be to add macrame either in wall hangings or plant holders. House plants took a real upturn in the seventies, possibly because now the exotic was traveling across borders. Ferns hanging from macrame holders, large Swiss Cheese plants were all essentials in the homes of that era.

As I mentioned before, the seventies also had some revival styles happening, Art Nouveau became popular, with Mucha's ladies appearing on mirrors.  

I shall be back to normal next week with the Styling The Seasons and Urban Jungle Bloggers photos, have a lovely week and keep your fingers crossed for me in the Amara Interior Blog Awards. 

Peace.

Weaving Navajo Style

You may remember a while back I tried my hand at weaving. It's something I tried way way back in the mist of time (cough, whisper, sshhh it was the 1970's).  That and macrame, both of which I never thought I would see a recurrence of appreciation for. But like everything, things come back in fashion. 

I must admit, I never thought I would see G-Plan furniture coming back in style but saying that publicly just makes me look like a right old codger haha.  There are so many schools of thought on decorating, it's as personal as your clothes. I'm all in favour of revivals in styles, so whether you were born before the 70's or way after, you can either re-live your youth or play with ideas from the past. 

So with the return of retro, teak sideboards, Trechikoff paintings, browns, teals and mustards, comes the macrame plant pot holder and the woven wall hanging, and I love it.

But you don't have to go the whole hog with the look, replicating every element, if you are clever with colour you can mix it in with pieces from other time periods.  Placement is also key, and because weaving is a textural thing it can work as a way to soften a more minimal harder surrounding.

The first few little weavings I did were just to get my hand in, with anything crafty one does need to practice the technique a bit to get the tension right and also to the design that appeals to you most. 

I started with some freeform lines, seeing how different thicknesses of yarn would sit together and while its much neater to use the same size yarn all the way through you can create a more three dimensional piece with fringes and variations in weft.

So what to use as a frame, well if you look on pinterest you can see that almost anything can be adapted as a frame, old picture frames, branches etc.  Here's where my adaptation for a frame comes in, I bought a tapestry stretcher frame on ebay with the idea that such a thing might come in handy one day (oh the hoarding mentality). 

This large tapestry frame has given me the chance to make a larger piece although it is really tricky trying to keep the warp threads at an equal distance.  As my intentions were to use up some of the yarn stash it seemed a bit counter productive to buy an expensive purpose made weaving loom, and I can just imagine the reaction from the other half at spending loads of money on four bits of wood with notches in. I think if he was better at d.i.y. I would have asked if he could make a loom, perhaps you will have better luck with your spouses abilities in the wood working department, (probably not if he or she is a musician though)! I think that when this piece is finished I will decide if I like the 'handmade' look or whether to get a professional frame for a neater look.

Now I've looked at designs a bit more I'm gravitating towards the American Native Indian style of geometric, you can see these on my pinterest boards too. This week I am definitely channeling my inner Navajo.  

Textile artist Maryanne Moodie does fantastic things with fringes, I wish I could go to one of her classes as I'm not getting on well with the fringe aspect, I can't get it to sit smoothly, so for now Im giving it a miss. 

So that's my progress so far and I will show you the finished results fairly soon.  I'm also weaving beads on a small bead loom but that will have to wait until this is finished, one thing at a time. 

Urban Jungle Bloggers and Woven Wall Hangings

Im really quite excited at the moment by two elements of interior styling and the use of colour. One of these elements is the re-discovery of house plants through the network of Urban Jungle Bloggers and the other is woven wall hangings.

If you are wondering what Urban Jungle Bloggers is all about then let me give you an idea here.  Set up by two lovely souls, Igor and Judith, they have brought an online community together of people who love house plants.  At first I thought it was for people living in the city but now I've met Igor and Judith I realise its for everyone who likes plants in their home and who like to style with them. 

As I've mentioned before, I attended a blogging conference a few weeks ago, primarily to meet in person the people behind some of the most inspiring things on the internet.  Bloggers are people who often are working in complete isolation and this can become far too inward looking if you're not careful. So when you meet the creators of a cool online community and they are really nice with a great philosophy and attitude, its a bonus for sure.

Having travelled extensively when I was in the music business, to over 42 countries around the globe, you find that some nations have very cool attitudes to life and I think that this is exuded by Igor and Judith in bucket loads. Their 'no rules' approach and philosophy is so rare these days, the idea to facilitate the meeting (virtually) of like minded people for no financial reason is a Karma which will return to them Im sure. This is also something I would love to emulate in my #paintpassion community.

Setting a theme monthly to their house plant stylings Im delighted to say that in my first month they have chosen my area - colour - to be the topic, giving it the hashtag #plantcolorpop (and don't forget its the American spelling of color not the English spelling - Colour.

Since working with Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint(tm)for Painters In Residence, Ive continued to explore this paints properties and abilities. Becoming more and more free with my approach I've been developing a technique of working with a wet brush and just dipping the same brush into different colours, then working it with water and so on, to blend and wash.  Ive chosen to do this on some back boards as a way to practice but Im intending to expand onto canvases too.

The backboards give me the possibilities to try out colour combinations and see how they work with different objects on and around them.  So to my third element here, the woven wall hanging.

I studied textile and embroidery for A level in the late 1970's, so the revival of the this type of wall hanging has amused me enormously. Its been a right trip (in the hippy sense of the word) to pick it up again and be able to play around with it for interior styling. 

Last weekend I went to Yarnspiration2015, a day of workshops and socialising for people who love their yarns, like alcoholics anonymous for wool hoarders - where do you keep your hidden stash?, did you secretly spend the housekeeping on cashmere and silk yarn, oh the confessions.  Hello my name is Janice and Im a yarnoholic.

It's Fibre East at the end of July, a big yarn related show which I shall be popping along to and reporting back on.  Its my nearest big wool show, in Ampthill. 

Anyway, back to the wall hangings, Ive tried two on the small basic hand loom and one utilising a tapestry frame.  I don't want to give a tutorial here yet until I feel Ive tried out a few things and can tell you the do's and don't from first hand experience. Like anything, practice makes perfect so I shall practice a bit more and let you know.  

You can find Urban Jungle Bloggers here and I'd put money on it that after looking you will be rushing off to the garden centre.

Im back off to do some more weaving and paint sploshing now, please tag me and #paintpassion so I can see what you have been up to.