...for my bedding collection is a yummy fabric aptly named "Fair Maidens" which I first spotted well over a year ago... I developed such a crush on this fabric because I immediately fell for its colours (there is another colour stream which I have yet to show you and which is absolutely delicious!) and the lovely way the "maidens" are illustrated with such perfect little details (just look at their hair styles!) that make them so very endearing; the design is playful and whimsical with the perfect touch of sweetness without making it all too sugary, don't you find?....
Now, while I do have a sweet little stash of children's prints which I mostly collected when my children were younger, I'm not drawn to them as much these days, in great part because my children are older now (I have three teenagers now... yikes!) and I feel like I'm out of that "kiddie" phase. Also, when I look at a lot of the children's prints nowadays, I may find them "cute" but not much more than that, and for me to add to my rather huge collection of fabric now, I either have to have a specific need for the fabric or the fabric really has to "turn my head"! And when I first saw "Fair Maidens", it did just that because I think it touched the "kid" in me with its playfulness, as well as the "grown-up", with its beautifully-illustrated pattern and perfect colour combinations.
Needless to say, I bought a bunch of "Fair Maidens" in both of its colour streams, a bit impulsively, because I hadn't really figured out what I was going to use it all for yet... But, there are times when you just have to have the fabric just because you have such a crush on it, right?! (I can't even begin to remember how many times the shop clerk who is cutting my fabric asks me "So what will be using this fabric for?" and I find myself answering, rather sheepishly: "I really don't know yet, but I just like it!".)
Well, maybe the part of not knowing what I'd do with it all is not 100% true, because I did think of one possible use for the fabric when purchasing it... Whenever I consider buying a certain fabric, I always ask myself if I could use it to make crochet-edged pillowcases or cushions and, if the answer is "Yes", I'm definitely more liable to buy the fabric; so, when I asked myself this question with "Fair Maidens", I thought that, maybe, I could make my pillowcases out of it...
However, I was not quite sure whether a crochet-edged pillowcase would look OK with this fabric; its pattern is so intricately-detailed with so many different things going on in it, that adding a crochet edging to it all might just be too much and seem superfluous. (I had already tried doing just that with other fabrics patterned with little figures, such as babushkas, and didn't manage to make it look right because the crochet edge always looked like one detail too many...) But I decided to go for it and I sewed up a pillowcase on which I tried all sorts of crochet edgings; none of them seemed quite right until I tried the one you see in all the photos which, I think, suggests the crenellated edges of a castle tower, don't you think?! With this particular colour stream with the light blue background, I also found that, when I was trying out different yarn colours, a colour close to the blue background and to the subtle blue-green details in the pattern worked best for the edging instead of a bolder choice which made it all look too "busy"; I eventually settled on a minty blue colour which is so close to the background that it looks like the same colour in a lot of the photos! All in all, I have to say that it was all a bit of a challenge for me, but when I look at the finished pillowcase now, I'm happy I attempted it!
So, with this pillowcase in mind and the fact that my daughter, Nico, was begging me for some new bedding and really liked the "Fair Maidens" fabric, it came to me that I could design a bunch of different bedding items inspired by "Fair Maidens"; these would all go with the crochet-edged pillowcase made out of the fabric, not in a "matchy-matchy" kind of way, but in a looser "granny" kind of way, if you know what I mean... And not surprisingly, Nico, my crafty daughter who loves to draw, loves all things floral, loves to collect little things that make her smile and delights in all the little details like the dresses the "Fair Maidens" are wearing, also became a big part of my inspiration for all the bedding I ended up making; given that she's twelve now and definitely tottering between childhood and adolescence, I considered the day when she might no longer want a pillowcase with sweet maidens on her bed (snif! snif!), and so I tried to made sure that all the bedding pieces would work well with each other and without the "Fair Maidens" print as a focal point.
Of all the different pieces I made for this bedding, the one that is the most directly inspired by the "Fair Maidens" print is the cushion doll you can see above; because the maiden figures in the fabric were so charming, I thought it would be fun to make my version of one of them in a bigger format. So, I thought back to this little guy I made a while back...
...and I came up with this little girl...
...who was so much fun to make because, just like the little gnome above, she has a backside...
...which looks like this:
As you can see, her clothes are made of printed cottons, her crown of lace, her flowers and her hair of felted wool sweaters, and her ribbon at the back, of velvet. I have too say that it was fun to "dress" her because I had so many options from the fabrics in my stash and I ended up choosing fabrics that I thought would go well with both colour streams. As I was making her, it also dawned on me that I should call my little bedding collection "Calico Princess" because the dresses in the "Fair Maidens" fabric are drawn as if made of printed fabric, my cushion princess doll is dressed in printed cottons and, basically, I make use of all sorts of different printed cottons throughout the collection. Just to make sure I was using the word "calico" properly, I did check its definition and came up with this:
ˈkaliˌkō/
noun
noun: calico; plural noun: calicoes; plural noun: calicos
Perfect, I thought... Calico Princess, it is!
In case you're wondering, I will start stocking my Etsy shop with some of the pillowcases seen in this post in the next few days; once I take more detail photos of the crochet-edged cushions which you can see here and there in this post (they are propping up the cushion doll), I will also start listing them in my shop. I'm definitely thinking of offering the cushion doll as a pattern, but I still have to work that out... There is definitely much more to come as far as my "Calico Princess" bedding goes since, for one, I still have to show you the other colour stream, so I hope you will pop by again... Thanks for visiting and I hope you've enjoyed this post!
Hello lovely Beata :o)
Oh My Goodness ..... you are so clever! such beautiful fabric to use as your inspiration and the princess cushion is just adorable!
Happy weekend
love Jooles x x x
Posted by: jooles | October 04, 2014 at 12:05 AM
Beauitful, it all looks so pretty x
Posted by: Sarah | October 04, 2014 at 11:50 PM
Thoroughly enjoyed the post! That's one lucky little girl!! :) It's all so very lovely. The pillow is just s-o cute I love all her details, very clever. Just goes to show you should follow your instincts with buying fabric. (I've had the same conversation countless times with the sales clerk!) :D Look forward to seeing the next installment.
Posted by: Angela-Southern USA | October 05, 2014 at 06:24 AM
So pretty... I like your description of granny matching!
Posted by: mrs robinson | October 05, 2014 at 07:00 AM
OH THE CUSHION DOLL!! ahhh....xo :)
Posted by: leanne | October 05, 2014 at 05:26 PM
I'm feeling inspired by this post! lovely!!
Posted by: Kelly O. | October 06, 2014 at 12:33 PM
Very pretty cushions! Lovely!
Posted by: Nathalie | October 07, 2014 at 02:40 PM
Gorgeous. Would love them at my age - a grown up girl.
Posted by: Nicola | October 10, 2014 at 10:59 AM