and then there is the new RUG for Crate & Barrel

Here is a new rug I am thrilled about.  Designed around the same time I designed the pillows but what a difference color makes!  One of my favorite palettes.  To quote from the website: "Ochre, sage and lime green spiral in a kaleidoscope of organic shapes, inspired by the feathery forms and subtle coloration of lichen. Laura Foster Nicholson's abstract medallion design is masterfully realized in hand-tufted 100% wool."

"Cecily" wool rug by Laura Foster Nicholson for Crate & Barrel

new designs for Crate & Barrel

Petal pillow, Laura Foster Nicholson for Crate & Barrel

I always love it when my new designs come online.  Today I found that the trio of pillows I designed for Crate & Barrel for Spring 2014 are online.  They are fun!  Falling into the Suzani tradition, they are screen printed linen and then embellished with embroidery and crocheted flowers.  Love them!

Petal pillow, Laura Foster Nicholson for Crate & Barrel

Matilda pillow, Laura Foster Nicholson for Crate & Barrel

Matilda pillow, Laura Foster Nicholson for Crate & Barrel

Vinova pillow, Laura Foster Nicholson for Crate & Barrel

a new rug for Crate & Barrel

This morning my latest rug for Crate & Barrel went online.  Fun to design, and a beautiful, deeply saturated wool pile rug.  My last rug for them, Kincaid, was not such a burst of color as this one is.  And it is always fun to step out of character -- from vegetables to geometric blocks! -- and make something different.  The inspiration was Crate & Barrel's selected Pantone chart for the year.

new dishtowels for Crate & Barrel

Seems a little early for fall -- it is still in the 90's every day! -- but Crate & Barrel has posted the new fall dishtowels by LFN Textiles.  Both are cotton prints in saturated colors.  Autumn Squash is the same design that won a Spoonflower fabric contest last fall (so you can buy yardage of it there if you like!), a great design of heirloom pumpkins and gourds.  Acorns is sprays of (still green!) oak leaves with little embroidered acorns.  Cute!

and not only that...

Another new LFN design online at Crate & Barrel now is the valentine dishtowel & mug.  Couldn't be more different in design from the Kincaid rug, hence the new post!  I had a lot of fun designing this -- heart tulips.  I feel lucky when things go like this!

a new rug for Crate & Barrel

I have always wanted to design rugs.  In fact I have busily designed them for a while now, and in the last 3 monthsI have actually managed to get 2 out on the market!  The first was for Land of Nod, and I wrote about it in an earlier post.  My new rug for Crate & Barrel, Kincaid, is now available online and in stores.  It is all wool from New Zealand & Europe, hooked, and comes in 4 sizes.  I love wool.

Leaves falling

Two more colorways of my LEAVES ribbon arrived today: each features the same vibrant maple leaves. One is on a mysterious plum ground, and the other on an espresso brown. The brown version is just like the great brown kitchen towels I designed for Crate & Barrel this season (now I LOVE a brown towel, as it never shows stains!) And what do you know -- they are on sale right now! I also love a great deal!

fall already?

This week some of my designs for fall 2009 have turned up at Crate & Barrel: you'll find my leaves -- similar to the ribbon design in an earlier post -- embroidered on dark brown towels; and acorns embroidered on rust or dark brown hemstitched towels. More to come -- watch this space or go to www.CrateandBarrel.com

proprietary notions

It's not that I have not been creative, lately: now that I keep a blog I like the rhythm of keeping records of my design process. But this is the time of the season when I am working madly on new designs which don't just belong to me. I design for Renaissance Ribbons, for my line of LFN Textiles Artist's Ribbons, and we had a very satisfying couple of days in California earlier in the month going over lots of new design ideas. We have about 10 new ribbons in sampling right now. Such excitement! There will be at least 2, maybe 3 new holiday designs; 2-3 for fall; 2 new colorways for the brocaded Butterfly, and various & sundry other marvels to tempt you with ... but I don't feel quite sanguine about posting designs before final approval!

I have been working on a great new rug design for Crate & Barrel, hopefully for fall 2010 -- can't show you! And another rug for Land of Nod, a new and delightful client of mine. And some bedding sets as well -- dream work, to be sure. Imagine drawing the kind of bed you would have loved to wake up in as a 10 year old. And the rug to go in the room, too.

I hope that in the next few weeks I will have several new ribbons to write about; the new Crate & Barrel items, for fall 2009, should show up on the market in August. So we will all have to be patient.

Here is a little preview. (just couldn't keep it all to myself!)

Crate & Barrel Time

I have five new products online now at Crate & Barrel!

Tulip cocktail napkins

http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family.aspx?c=445&f=32005

Wildflower Doormat

http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family.aspx?c=1261&f=32610

Garden Harvest Embroidered Towel

http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family.aspx?c=684&f=30865

Allium Waffle Embroidered Towel

http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family.aspx?c=684&f=30883

Stones Pillow

http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family.aspx?c=1273&f=29158

And for the bargain-minded among you, here are some LFN sale items

Stones Pillow

http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family.aspx?c=4150&f=29159

Auricula Towels

http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family.aspx?c=4760&f=29646

Arbor Towels

http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family.aspx?c=4760&f=29645

Teapot towels (embroidered)

http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family.aspx?c=4760&f=29476

Teapot towels (print)

http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family.aspx?c=4760&f=31029

Fruit compote towels

http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family.aspx?c=4760&f=24843

Quinlan Apron. Potholder & Mitt:

http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family.aspx?c=4760&f=29695

Holiday offerings

I have recently decided to begin carrying a far wider selection of LFN Artist's Ribbons on my website once again; I have missed the everyday commerce since I joined LFN Textiles Ribbons with Renaissance Ribbons, so I will once again handle retail orders from my studio. I am adding ribbons gradually, by spring hoping to be up & running fully. There are currently 46 designs available.

You can check there now for the full range of LFN holiday designs (and be sure to find related giftwrap and tea towels at Crate & Barrel!). I also have available the wonderful Auricula, and some of the fabulous Suzani ribbons I have written about here.

more auriculas

You can see from the last post how much I am still working with the wild and beautiful auricula flower motif. The towel coming out for Crate & barrel takes the flower more realistically (and you might remember the allover jacquard Auricula towel form the spring). We are also working on Auriculas for the fall Renaissance Ribbon line, though we are just now introducing the pattern at the Markets. So I anticipate both imminently!

fall flowers

I visited Crate & Barrel offices last week with a new portfolio of LFN designs -- I always love working with the buyers there. They are highly creative people and it is a privilege that they use my designs! In turn I was given some samples of new LFN designs which have just come out on the market:

Vegetables embroidered towel (it also comes in brown)
Arbor embroidered towel
Quinlan printed apron, potholder & mitt
Teapot embroidered towel
Stones pillows (there are 2 versions, the other is red chenille)
(You can find the Stones table cloth & napkins from this summer's line, on sale now)
Silverware towel (based on my Cutlery ribbon and on sale now!)
and the Tomato towel which I wrote about in my last post.

Here's the Auricula towel: such beautiful embroidery! The little bees are exquisitely detailed! But I am a bit ahead of myself here, as it is not online yet....

Midsummer Tomatoes

Another cycle feels complete. Before I have picked a single red tomato from my garden, Crate & Barrel has brought out a new towel printed with my tomato design. This is based on my wonderful Tomato ribbon (the very first ribbon I designed!), which in its turn was based on the many tomato tapestries I have woven over the years. I love all of the products I design with Crate & Barrel (the whole process is so very much fun!) but this one feels special to me.

some fresh things

I have long been fascinated with Auricula flowers, and have worked with their odd and colorful faces many times. Ten years ago I wove a lovely linen jacquard with large blooms; this then translated to an upholstery fabric for my short-lived LFN Textiles Upholstery line.
Recently I Licensed the design to Crate & Barrel for use as a kitchen towel. Not finished yet! I spent the last few weeks making some applique fabric samples to expand my design vocabulary (usually I just design at the loom or on the computer screen) to include more warm & fuzzy reality in my portfolio. I have had a wonderful time with elementary materials such as wool felt, along with my usual staple, DMC floss and a few high-end decorator fabric snips thrown in. So here are the Auriculas from that cycle.

Christmas Spirits

I have never been a big fan of the red-green thing, other than the deep rich natural green of the holly which inspired it, so I was quite surprised when my colleagues at Renaissance Ribbons delicately insisted that it would be a good thing to use that Christmas kelly green we all know, on a couple of ribbons. And I remain surprised. Aren't they fun? there is a lot to be said for fitting -- colorwise -- within the mainstream sometimes: e.g., these colors will actually match people's wrapping papers and Christmas fabrics so can be used in many more ways! So I re-colored Ribbon Candy and Tiny Cakes (our best seller anyway) in these cheery colors.

I was also persuaded by Crate & Barrel to attempt something in terms of what they refer to as an "icon" for holiday linens, so last summer, when I found some fabulous vintage rhinestone brooches as an antique fair, I knew I had found it. First I translated it into a ribbon for RR, and next it will be embroidered/printed/woven/decalled onto any number of C&B products -- but for those, alas, you will have to wait for Holiday 2008.

(these images are courtesy of Crafter's Vision, where you can buy all of them)

Fruit Compote

Crate & Barrel came out with a new towel this fall based on my Fruit Compote tapestry from a few years ago. What I particularly like about the embroidery here is that it varies on every towel -- they used the same kind of space dyed threads that I weave with!! not to mention that a black dishtowel is very cool indeed: my towels get so dirty, and this will never show stains!

http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family.aspx?c=684&f=24843