There’s a lot of excitement about the start of March.  Rightfully so.  The first signs of spring are starting to show here too: our wisteria is starting to bud, the birds are hanging out by our fig tree–teasing Pixi, and there have been days when our outdoor rug is actually DRY from the sun!!  They tell us the rainy season is January and February, so hopefully we’ll get some more consistent sun days.

I love hand-painted fabrics and I love floral prints.  Jobs Handtryck’s textiles are so lovely.  The perfect amount of spring florals to cure your winter-blues.

In need of some beautiful block printed cottons or linens?  John Robshaw has a wide collection of Indian-inspired textiles. Some of my favorite, in the form of throw pillows:

Thinking about using this fabric in a project.  LOVE it. By Quadrille.

Awe…so precious. I don’t know what it is for canopies and little girls, but I’m such a sucker for them.  This is from the awesome Serena and Lily company.

I don’t think I can ever get enough of John Robshaw Textiles.  A client and I are looking into getting this set for their guest room.  Ahhh, so peaceful.  Can also be used for the master room: not too masculine, not too feminine.  Just right.

I. Love. Her.

Here’s a little secret: she does all the coordinating work for you! I think buying through her lines are great and easy way to get coordinate fabrics without the “matchy-matchy” look…something that designers are hired to do :)

But I’m all about helping my reader’s out.  I even might get some of these fabrics for my own home.  They have the perfect blend of modern with fun; faminine and masculine.  I just wish her fabrics were a little nicer than a simple cotton blend (for my drapes).  Mick and I have been having the hardest time agreeing on patterns we both like.  I think I’ve found a winner though:

or…

from her Daisy Chain line.  She also has beautiful bedding and stationary.  Dear sister Elizabeth, will you please sew me some of these puffs with your mad sewing skills?

LOVE the beautiful emroidery by Alexandra Ferguson.  By getting these pillows, not only are you getting beautiful work, but you’re being eco-friendly as well!  She uses recycled material from plastic water bottles.  Lovely!

I love Serena and Lily. I’ve blogged about them before, and every night I dream about cuddling up in the Tess Collection.  Unfortunatly my brown duvet will have to do.  But I also fell in love Posey Collection for a girl’s nursery.  So fun.

Handmade in Jakarta, these linen and cotton wares from Etsy shop Kain Kain are beautifully embroidered. “Kain” is the Indonesian word for fabric - everything in this shop is focused on textiles decorated with linear, graphic patterns. 

Some of my favorites are this table runner and this ballet bag.  I can’t get over how beautiful the embroidery is…and for such a great price too.

I love this bedding selection from Serena and Lily.  Calming and Soothing.  Maybe it’s time to redo the bedroom…

love. love. LOVE the colors in Merimekko’s Spring 2009 collection.  So bright.  So fun.

Oooh LaLa.  Love the colors and designs for these textiles found at Ink and Spindle.  

Fun, funky textiles by Bev Hisey.  I love the ant pillows!  They’re so fun!

Sticking with my colorful theme today.  And in lieu of Valentine’s day…I present to you ELSWARES pillows.  So cute.

These fun kitchen towels from Tikoli almost make me want to spend more time in the kitchen.  Almost.

I blogged about this Friday, but some how it got deleted.  And in that post I confessed how it’s hard for me to blog about awesome sales in fear of everything being gone before I get there.  A few of you have contacted me needing the info, wondering if I deleted it for that reason.  No.  Although that’s not a bad idea…it just somehow got erased in cyberspace.

ANYWAY, Designer Company Fabrics is having their “step down” sale.  This week sale fabrics are only $3/yard.  Next Monday (Feb 2) they will only be $2/yard!  Here’s their address.  I recommend going to the Salt Lake location.  They literally have hundreds more to choose from.  I’m actually headed down there toady, say “hi” if you see me there!

Salt Lake: 2253 South  500 East

Draper:     196 West   12300 South

I’ve been shopping for fabrics on Thaibaut, and ran across this chair.  I love it!  Classic chair, with elegance.  Redefined Elegance that is.

First I must apologize: Sarah’s room wasn’t shown in last night’s Chuck episode.  I feel like I’ve let you all down.  But promise still holds: if/when you see her room, you won’t be disappointed.

I’ve got a busy morning today: early Home Builder’s meeting and then off to Contempo Tile.  So I don’t have much time to write and elaborate on a given textile.

I was browsing through some old China pictures and came across a few from when we went to a silk factory.  It was very, very interesting.

These are the silk worm cocoons floating in the hot water.  The hot water allows the silk to be broken up, but still saved.  Then the little spinners spool them into threads.  Pretty cool.  The only un-cool (like, is that even a word?) thing about this process is that the little silk worms do die in the process.

Did you know you can make mattresses out of silk? Well, you can.  This is what we were doing here.  You start off with a small square piece of woven silk about a the size of a square foot.  Then you get a team to pull together from opposite sides.  You do this layer after layer, after layer…as low as 50 times.  I wasn’t able to lay on one, so I’m not sure how comfortable and supportive they are.  Although if they were comfortable, I would imagine we’d have them here in the states. 

That’s my little blonde head behind the sweet Asian silk worker.

Aaaand here’s a random picture of me catching a ride behind this crazy cyclist.  I was scared for my life.  And trying to keep my skirt down.

One more picture.  I know, you’d expect this kind of thing coming from Mick.  Not me, but isn’t this gross?  EWE!