I’ve always admired Amy from a distance, ever since I saw her designs for two Kips Bay show houses in New York, and I blogged about her earlier this year. So it was really exciting to finally meet her, and chat about the influences behind these fabrics, the look of which is a signature of much of her work, as you can see below.

The new patterns are based on American abstract art, she told me, referring to the likes of Morris Louis,

Mark Rothko,

and Bridget Riley.

“We put art up on the walls – why can’t these fabrics start having a dialogue with the art?” Amy asked.

Her fabrics, with their blocks, dots, and wavy lines, will have a lively conversation indeed with any modern art collection. And beyond all the shapes and colors, the fabrics are meticulously painted with watercolors by hand and embroidered in her studio, which makes them feel just as good as they look.

David Klaristenfeld, vice president of S. Harris, described Amy as a life force. “She cornered me” at a luncheon, he said, and told him that his company, which owns Fabricut and Vervain, should be going in new directions with its designs. She was not to be refused. “I said, ‘Amy, why don’t you just tell me what you want, and we’ll do a line,’ ” he said, laughing in resignation. “Amy brought a completely new aesthetic that none of our designers would have ever thought of.”

She’s also bringing a new look to the J. Lambeth showroom, which is known mostly for its more traditional fabrics. “It’ll be really interesting to see how this is received. It’s very modern,” Ann Lambeth said.

Ann graciously pointed to Washington Spaces as evidence that there is a growing modern influence on design in DC. “DC is getting more modern, and we want to be a part of it,” she said.

As such, they are working on a new contemporary gallery within their showroom. And if Amy is any indication of what they’ll have to offer, I can’t wait to see it.

I’ll leave you now with pictures from last night’s party, which brought out a cool crowd of designers. Ciao!

Amy poses with Barry Dixon, who will debut his own line of green fabrics for Vervain – an S. Harris company – through J. Lambeth in January.

Ann and Jim Lambeth pose with their celebrity designers.

Designer Liz Levin, right, stands with her co-designer, Heather Safferstone.

Gloria de Lourdes Blalock, left, stands with Camille Saum.

Designer Sally Steponkus mugs with Jim Lambeth

While we’re in Brazil, let’s visit a company called Será O Benedito, or SOB for short. The environmentally-oriented fashion company that makes items such as shoes and handbags also has a small line of small furnishings, including this “Puff Mike,” which is also made from what must be ubiquitous truck tarps down there.

Um, well, this might be great for a bachelor pad, maybe? Put it this way – spilled beer stains might even enhance the look.

Moving back to the United States, I couldn’t help but think there might be some giant conspiracy going on when I saw a chair at Central Station Interiors that was upholstered with old Army tents. The company buys surplus military camping tarps – with all their labels, patches and pockets – and has them sewn by hand into upholstery for the Cargo Chair.

And over at Cisco Brothers, a company that has been green from the very beginning, its new lines include Army-tent upholstery, too. They also have pillows embroidered with old Army patches. Drab green never looked so good, for sure.

“We’re using every scrap of the tent,” said Rosie Pinedo, who does the fabric and product buying for her brother Cisco Pindeo’s company. They used scraps of tents on pillows, including the grommets, stitching, and lettering.

“Part of our society is being so negative on the war. It was our way of supporting the troops,” she said. “Cisco saw these tents at the Rosebowl. Some of these are from the early 1900s and were never used. Some are even from the late 1800s.” She added that the sofas, chairs, and pillows covered in the canvas tents will be sold as one of a kind. “The details are part of the beauty and a little of history.”

I knew this all sort of felt like déjà vu, because when we were in High Point in April, we saw the first evidence of this new trend. Vanguard Furniture debuted its Bloomsbury collection of furniture, which included the Campden Settee, upholstered with patched and stamped – let me guess! – truck tarps.

Vanguard Marketing Director Diane Hubbard notes that the tarp is available on “almost any” upholstery item – “so sustainable!” she wrote in an e-mail.

As an end note, for your viewing pleasure, I’ll include this picture of a mannequin dressed up to look like a goddess in the Tritter Feefer showroom at High Point. Her toga? Recycled drop cloths.

This is the picture that accompanied the 2009 furnishing trends report from the ultimate color authority, Pantone.

Pop quiz: What’s the most prevalent shade in the bunch?

And wait, there’s more! Pantone’s fashion color forecast for Spring 2010 includes (left to right, below) Fusion Coral, Tuscany, and Pink Champagne in the top 10.

“Many consumers are taking a softer, more gentle approach with their color palettes,” India Hicks says in the forecast. “Antique rose and lavender” is referenced.

The furnishings report, furthermore, calls the 2009 color grouping “ ‘designer boutique meets flea market finds’ as it revisits shabby chic, but it is definitely more chic than shabby.” “Cloudy coral” is an example used. 

But make no mistake with all these fancy names. Mauve is back, people.

And once you start talking about something, suddenly, it’s everywhere.

You can see it in bedding from Elizabeth Allen;

There’s an undeniable mauve overtone in new ads for YSL’s Parisienne perfume…

and Dolce & Gabbana’s Rose The One scent.

You can even get a dose of “Berry Mauve” with Samsung’s Gravity 2 cell phone.

And if that’s not enough, go ahead – paint yourself with it.

Well, it looks like all of home, tech, and fashion culture is giving me one big mauve intervention. Duly noted. But do I really need to get with that program?

“I’m a huge pillow fan – huge,” he said. Indoors, or out.

As one can also see, he’s a huge fan of the blue and white combination – and of wallpaper. “I’m a wallpaper person. I wallpaper like crazy,” he said. This is Butera’s own living room. “I love my blues dropped in with a lot of different color schemes,” he added, such as the deep greens of live plants, and the browns from an animal print rug. “I always throw in an animal print.”

More plants, combined with dark wood furniture on top of a cool zebra-print rug, make this foyer look studied and natural at the same time.

Another important design rule for Butera is symmetry. “I’m huge in balance. I like my symmetry,” he said – right down to the corresponding teapots and orchids on each side of the huge (and perfectly symmetrical) bay window.

This great room exhibits more of that symmetry. On either side of the central fireplace, there are matching hurricane candles, topiaries, built-ins with similar accessories all in the same scale. In front of the hearth, opposing wing chairs and sofas (with Butera’s signature blue and white pillows) flank the central cocktail table.

And just when you thought you’d seen enough pillows? Rubbish, Butera would say. You can never have too many.

Note the nautical theme on the paintings over the fireplaces in the above pictures. This whole look comes from Butera’s “Beach” lifestyle. He’s come up with four lifestyles in his fabric, furniture, and wall covering collections – Beach, Town & Country, Mountain, and Desert – as a starting point for clients and customers: Choose a basic look, and then let him fill it in from there.

These fabrics and wall coverings combine Butera’s Mountain and City looks.

I wouldn’t mind having this Desert bedroom. Butera arranged found branches in huge zinc containers that flank the bed. “Have fun!” he told his audience of interior designers.

Butera designed this vintage-Hollywood guest suite for a designer show house in Bel Air sponsored by House Beautiful magazine in 2003. As he told Home Accents Today: “It had perfect balance and symmetry, represented an isolated era in time, and appealed to both the male and female aesthetic. It remains the most popular picture I have in my entire portfolio. It was a really fun project and was a defining moment in my design career.”

So, what’s he up to now? Butera just completed decorating a room for the 2009 Hearst Castle Overnight, which was just auctioned off to a lucky couple. The winning bidders will take eight friends there for the day to swim in the famed Neptune pool, play tennis, have dinner on the terrace, stroll the gardens, and watch a movie in the castle’s theater. Then the couple will spend the night in a bedroom designed by Butera, the first designer to work on a room there since William Randolph Hearst left the estate in 1947.

We don’t have a picture of the room yet, but will post when we do. In the meantime, here are some images from Butera’s Hearst Castle collection of pillows, for those of us who can’t have the real thing:

Moving right along, he finds an interesting pitcher that looks like black basalt. But he’s been to so many flea markets and knows so much about what he sees, that he quickly moves on. “It’s pretty, but it doesn’t feel real. It doesn’t have that gritty weight.”

I loved what Eddie had to say about old linens. “You can’t go to Macy’s and get this,” he said. “It’s been loved and hand washed. They’ve been used so many times” – that you can wash and even bleach them without worry.

Eddie helped me see past things that initially might seem pretty bad, like this chair. “These chairs are frightening in the fabric they’re in, but lacquer the frame, add mod fabric and silver nailheads – it would take that granny aspect and turn it into a ‘wow’ factor.”

He pounced on this adjustable sterling-silver toast rack. “I’ve never seen an adjustable!” he said. “You can’t go into Tiffany and get something like this.”

When Eddie worked at Martha Stewart Living, he would look to old magazine covers for MSL cover inspiration, such as a certain camera angle, or the way things were arranged.

“This, to me, is a whole [theme] inspiration for Halloween,” he said of this old Cinderella book.

“I’d blow these up and make art” from the illustrations in this 1884 fashion magazine, Eddie said.

Eddie gasped when he saw this set of six chairs for $195. “Insane!” he said. All you need to do is upholster them.

Flea markets are great to shop for wonderful vintage wedding or anniversary presents, Eddie said, such as this classic Heisey glassware, which was produced between 1896 and 1957.

This sterling Victorian ice cream slicer can also be used for serving cakes, chicken, or fish. “Unusual serving pieces are great to give as gifts,” Eddie said. And for $25, who can beat it?

Another great gift idea, or a way to add to your own stock for entertaining: Sterling silver spreaders. Adorable.

Eddie took his tour group to these racks of old coats. When he used to style shoots for House Beautiful and Martha Stewart Living, he said they would make throw pillows out of vintage fabric to add some oomph to a room’s look. Old coats are a great way to find this kind of fabric, such as the black lamb’s wool boucle he’s pointing out. Purchased new in New York, this fabric would be $500 per yard.

Remember the booth with the Heisey glass? Well, I bought myself a jelly dish, and it goes perfectly with my Tiffany china and silver patterns.

And taking Eddie’s advice, I also purchased these vintage 1940s silverplate servers ($6!) and adorable cocktail napkins ($15) as a wedding gift for a friend.

When my husband and I were in New York last month, we almost bought a vintage flour sack from a shop in the East Village for $65, because we wanted to turn it into a pillow for our new sectional in the basement. We didn’t end up getting it, and it’s a good thing, because I found these wonderful feed sacks – for a total of $10!

Thanks, Eddie and Jaithan, for a great flea-market education. And thanks, too, to Michele of My Notting Hill for hosting such a wonderful cocktail party the night before for them and local bloggers and designers. For a recap of that affair, go to her blog right here.

Moving right along…

These “pebbles” from Bambu would look fabulous in a glass bowl. They are made from scrap material.

These adorable farm plates from J.K. Adams are laser-engraved on Vermont maple cut from managed forests.

Bamboo-inlaid tray from Zen Zen Garden & Home

Serving pieces made from citrus wood from the citrus industry’s waste, from Canvas Home.

Recycled glass from Shiraleah, left and Esque Studio, right.

Recycled foil baskets and a decorative object made from nipa pods, from Lazy Susan USA.

Recycled cotton and burlap from Michaelian Home

Eco-friendly hand-woven textiles from Sustainable Threads

A children’s “wish frame” made from recycled cardboard, from Cardboardesign

Stay tuned for more green fun tomorrow.

The Shade Store is an offshoot of the family-run Home Works, which produces custom window treatments for "very, very high-end clientele" in the New York region, says spokesman Greg Spatz. "People love the quality, love the style, so how do we make this more affordable and more accessible?" its owners asked themselves when they founded the e-commerce Shade Store about four years ago, Spatz says. 

Robert Allen drapery, shades

Custom drapery starts at $129 per panel and ships (free) in 10-15 days. Hardware, which can be equally as prohibitive, starts at just $70. Shades start from $65 to $242, depending on the type and maker. They have a great price calculator that will give you pricing for fabric choices with your specific window dimensions.

Dwell Studio drapery, Robert Allen Roman shades

"When you start getting into the real custom products, there’s really nobody else out there that offers this type of quality and this type of turnaround time," Spatz says. 

Here’s a wild Geometri pattern by Verner Panton for Maharam, with roller shades from Chilewich:

And Chilewich shades alone make a lovely statement.

Dwell Studio is perfect for children’s rooms. I have to say, though, that the detritus of my own children’s play isn’t nearly as lovely. If only their messes were so perfectly styled.

And whenever I think of panel shades, I envision those ugly, clattering vertical blinds. But not here:

My sons have started lobbying for a new, older-boy look to their bedroom. I already know where I’ll look to replace the construction-themed valances that are there now. 

"I emboss that shape in wood," Sallay says. "This is all wood, and then we color it."

I so can’t tell this is wood.

Back at Moore & Giles, its leather graces furniture in the Four Seasons and Park Hyatt hotels here in DC. Here’s some other examples of their leather that doesn’t look like leather: 

That isn’t to say they don’t have a delicious line of leathers that look like the real deal.

The Ted Boerner Lex Chair in Moore & Giles’ Kipling leather in cameo brown

Absolute Avocado leather

Here are some other great options – the Cascade, and below it, Barrington collections:

So, if you can’t decide on leather or non-leather, you can always get one that looks like the other. Or you can just go straight for the real thing. Ah, choices… 

 

These detached structures have become so popular that Design Within Reach offers its own prefab version called the Kithaus. Not only can you purchase the structure, but you can also buy furnishing “packages” designed to fit within its walls. How cool is that?

I was also enchanted with the many examples of grain-sack upholstery in our What’s New department.

But no sooner did the magazine arrive at the warehouse than I got the latest catalogue from Wisteria, which features table runners…

… and upholstery.

I also noticed that Pottery Barn has gotten into the mix with its “French stripe” upholstery on the Marcel chair.

And Dan Marty Design, whose grain-sack textiles we featured in the magazine, sent us images of additional antique textiles, but these were recycled Japanese kimonos and futons, called Boro. Here, they show the lovely fabric on a chair with a grain-sack stripe.

Dan Marty’s Boro cloth pillows elicit the same shabby-chicness of the grain sacks:

I’m only one set of eyes – has anyone else out there discovered more great examples of outbuildings or grain sacks? An unlikely pair, I know…

Clodagh is one of the early “green” designers, adopting sustainable practices before it became a trend. She also tries to integrate the earth’s elements into her designs, and is a practitioner of feng shui. This is the result:

Back to the fabrics: The 10 new patterns for Perennials were all inspired from the natural world, according to the press release, which says, “These earthy tones exhibit the adventuresome spirit of a global nomad [Clodagh] who has traveled to over 90 countries in her storied career.”

As I was browsing through Clodagh’s Web site, I couldn’t stop gazing at her placid interiors, which nonetheless carry a bit of an edge. They are like a visual massage.

I love this idea for the kitchen, in which she hangs a transparent sheer between it and the dining room. From a diner’s standpoint, the kitchen becomes an impressionist painting.

And this outdoor setting, with fire below and fabric that shimmers like the sea above, is like a meditation. Yet, it’s in the middle of Harlem, if you can believe it.

Clodagh’s new fabric line isn’t her only branded collection. She’s got furnishings, accessories, rugs, lighting, tile – you name it. So even if you can’t have her come design your home, you can certainly purchase of piece of that look.

Wiener will be spending the summer working with Crypton to design furniture and choose fabrics that will have a broad appeal, she says. “I want [to include] something that’s clearly contemporary, clearly traditional, and clearly transitional – something for everyone,” she says.

Examples of existing Crypton furniture, which I didn’t know they had before Debbie’s call: Asher sofa; Jacqueline Chair; Alex Ottoman.

Wiener’s design criteria across all categories includes: Only rounded arms on sofas (better for naps); no skirts on the upholstery (“I just find skirts to be another place to trap dust and pet hair”); and “all the leg finishes have got to match up to Magic Markers.”

We’ve listened to a lot of hoity-toity design speak here at the magazine, but her comments cut to the chase. When I think about all the scratches my kids have put on our chairs’ arms and legs, why don’t the stores include “Magic Marker Brown” on their list of umpteen wood-finish selections?

In addition, Wiener says her furniture will be “totally green, with really high-quality details and indestructible fabric.”

So, when we ultimately replace our yellow sofa where my 7-year-old spilled my glass of red wine over the weekend, I’ll know who to call.

David comes to textile design with a background as a theater director and interior designer. Her passion for flowers (she’s a member of two local garden clubs) comes from growing up in a house full of them. Her mother’s arrangements were “massed with the most exquisite flowers – stunning roses, striated tulips, bountiful peonies, [and] multi-hued zinnias,” David writes.

Clockwise from top left: Rose Trellis, Laurel Rose, Mosaic Twist and Mosaic Tulips, and Ballerinas.  

Becky LaRoche at J. Lambeth says David is in a niche all her own. Her embroidered patterns “are much more three-dimensional” than other embroidered fabrics, LaRoche says, and “It’s not really traditional, but it’s not contemporary, so it can be taken either way. She’s got a good eye for color.”

David’s textiles were recently displayed in the lobby at The Washington Design Center.

David’s fabrics were debuted at J. Lambeth barely six months ago, LaRoche says. “It’s not predictable,” she says of the patterns. “It’s a boutique line, so it’s somebody’s individual craft. She has an interesting way of interpreting [flowers] with her artistic mind.”

The Portofino cotton/cashmere throws are so handsome, don’t you think?

And who can resist these baby blankets?

Rani Arabella gets really playful with its pillows – check out these beauties:

And its summer collection of linen pillows will improve your mood on the spot.

Rani Arabella is, well, rather expensive. But aren’t you worth it? I know I am, but I’m not sure if my bank account thinks so… Ah, well. We can all dream.