Here in Big Orange Country, we don’t necessarily think of orange as a color we want to fool with in our interior design schemes, unless we’re married to a rabid Vol fan who insists on a Big Orange powder room, basement or boy’s nursery.  Today I’d like to submit that orange is a great accent color and you do not have to commit to it 100% to get some benefit from it’s happy nature.

Being that fall is upon us and orange is the star color of the season (football and otherwise), let’s explore our beloved school color and fall in love with it again.

According to color theory, orange combines the energy of red and the happiness of yellow. It is associated with joy, sunshine, and the tropics. Orange represents enthusiasm, fascination, happiness, creativity, determination, attraction, success, encouragement, and stimulation.  To the human eye, orange is a very hot color, so it gives the sensation of heat. Nevertheless, orange is not as aggressive as red. Orange increases oxygen supply to the brain, produces an invigorating effect, and stimulates mental activity. It is highly accepted among young people.   Orange is the color of fall and harvest. In heraldry, orange is symbolic of strength and endurance.

Orange has very high visibility, so you can use it to catch attention and highlight the most important elements of your design.   Enjoy this photo gallery at Martha’s website and see her take on decorating with orange.  Also, below is a gallery of orange fabrics or fabrics with orange as an accent color that we currently have in stock.  We are a big fan of pillows and they are the perfect vehicle to bring a little orange into your room.  Check out the gallery and get inspired to add a little vitamin C to your home!

As my UPS man, Thomas said today, “Let’s hope our Big Orange football team has strength and the fans have endurance!”  Go Vols!

Here are some more new ideas for dorm rooms, teen’s rooms and even baby’s rooms.

Pretty shades of pink and orange prints.

Sophisticated black, white, gray and a cool shade of green in a printed floral and stripe.  This combo would make a really neat shower curtain for a teen bathroom, too.

A great color combination of teal and orange!  Floral and stripe print and an awesome orange houndstooth upholstery.  Not just for the Vol fan.  Orange is a hot color in the new fabrics.

The possibilities are endless, the prices affordable at The Fabric Market!

It’s barely summer yet, but all you high school seniors and your mommas have been thinking about  Fall ’10 for some time.  Hopefully, by now, everyone knows where they are going, where they are living and whom you are going to live with.  But have you thought about what your dorm room is going to look like?   Here are some tips to help you make your dorm room dreamy!  These tips can also make apartments awesome!  And you young men can spruce up a dorm room too.  Just because it’s the guys doesn’t mean that your room can’t be cool and comfortable.

Raise the bed UP!  Risers will create so much more storage space in a place where space is a premium!  With risers you can practically store all of your folded clothes, tees, shorts, etc. under the bed!  Plastic drawers and bins are a must!  And often this is where a custom made bedskirt can really come in handy.  It will never be too short, no matter how tall your risers are.  And guys, you know lofting the bed is a cool way to create space and no bedskirt is needed!

Pillows!  Decorative pillows can turn your bed into a sofa and your dorm room becomes a cool place to hang out!

Window treatments!  The easiest way to add warmth to a room is to put some fabric on the windows.  Here are a few valence ideas that are easily mounted on tension rods and can be installed right inside your dorm window!  Another easy treatment is to make one panel, hemmed to the desired length, shirred on a tension rod and tied back to one side.  Then when you want to block out the light, just un-do the tieback and let the panel fall over the window.

Here are some cool color palettes to brighten any dorm or apartment.

These fabs have been selected and suggested because their cost per yard is quite a bit lower than most interior design or decorative fabrics.

The key to a super suite is definitely organization and concealment!  There are all kinds of closet bars and hanger systems to help you get organized and some coordinating fabric for a closet curtain just adds more punch to your place.  Remember a shoe rack to keep your kicks off the floor and use that precious space to store other things.   Dorm room overhead lighting is not great, so get yourself a cute floor or bedside lamp for ambient lighting and a good desk lamp for task lighting.  Another must is an area rug.  That cold linoleum floor will not feel good getting up for an 8:00 class!  Your floor will look great and your toes will be comfy.

Lastly, a little custom work goes a long way to making your dorm distinctive and your apartment awesome.  Customize a little by using ready made bedding and adding pillows and curtains to your space.  OR customize a lot by designing your own dorm or apartment space just the way you want it.  Make it comfortable and make it your own.  A haven, a home away from home, a hip hangout!

I am certain that spring will eventually come to East Tennessee, it’s just taking it’s own sweet time.  With the winter that we have had, I’m sure everyone will take the first opportunity to be outside once the weather turns. So, what better place to enjoy an East Tennessee spring than on your porch, deck or patio?

So, let’s get some education on fabrics suitable to cozy up your outdoor space.   Any wrought iron or wicker furniture could benefit from a little added comfort in the form of cushions or throw pillows.  And any outdoor table could be spruced up with a cute table cloth!

The trend toward comfortable outdoor spaces, complete with fireplaces, televisions and kitchens have spawned an extreme interest in fabrics that can withstand the elements.   Outdoor fabrics are now of designer quality with an array of solid and textured colors, and patterns and prints of amazing variety.  We carry two types of indoor/outdoor fabrics.

Acrylic and polyester is the most decorative choice for an outdoor fabric and also the most affordable.  Woven, yarn dyed acrylic or polyester fabrics come in a magnificent variety of colors and weave patterns. In addition to their durability and resilience, they resist wrinkling, shrinking, fading, and mildew.  Not surprisingly, they are the choice of designers and manufacturers as base cloths for their printed patterns.  

The other type is solution dyed acrylic fabric.  The dye is mixed with a liquid acrylic solution. After the colors are drenched into the fibers, it becomes more resistant to fading even with strong sun exposure.  With this extra step, comes an added cost,  but also added value.  Now, nothing outlasts the sun, so this type of fabric will eventually give in, but it will give you thousands of light hours before it does.  Properly cared for, solution dyed outdoor fabrics will retain their color and texture for a long, long time. You will probably get tired of it before it wears out!

In addition to retaining their color over many light hours, both of these types of fabrics resist water, mold and mildew longer than a regular decorative fabric would.

But you have to take care of your products if you want them to give you good service.  Consider the fact that these fabrics are water repellant, not waterproof, and keep them away from frequent exposure to damp environments. They work best on covered outdoor spaces where they are not completely drenched or exposed to the sun.  Brush off the dust and pollen regularly to keep your outdoor space comfortable and spot clean when necessary.   Also take note that it is not advisable to apply bleach on acrylic and polyester printed fabrics.

So, get to work on your outdoor space and be ready when good  weather finally gets here!  Check out the Indoor/Outdoor Fabric category on the website and come in for a re-do on your little slice of heaven.

The Fabric Market Annual Sale begins on January 4th! Big savings on great fabrics and trims! In stock fabrics are reduced 10% – 75%. All accessories and in stock trimmings are reduced 10% – 50% as well! As always, our helpful and experienced staff will see that you are happy with your purchase and refer you on to a workroom or upholsterer if necessary. Come by and freshen up your home for the New Year and do it for less at The Fabric Market!

The Fabric Market, where the possibilities are endless…the prices, affordable!

Since The Fabric Market is not a holiday driven retail business, this time every year we do some annual housekeeping and then we close for the week before Christmas and the week after. We will have our inventory and be ready to open up at the first of the year rested and refreshed and ready to help you with your home decor projects!

We will close at the end of the business day on Friday, December 18th and reopen on Monday, January 4th with our regular business hours.

So, from all of us at The Fabric Market, have a Blessed Christmas and a Very Merry New Year. We will see you in 2010!

Many of us, me included, get into a pattern (I didn’t want to say “rut”) with our Christmas decorations. We tend to haul out the same, sometimes tired, decorations, stockings and other Christmas decor. I am suggesting that this year you change things up and use decorator fabrics to enhance your Christmas decor and boost your Christmas spirit!

The girls here have designed our own Christmas stockings using interior design fabrics and trims. The possiblities are endless with the many fabric and trim combinations! You can also make tree skirts, mantle cloths and decorative pillows to coordinate with your stockings. Here’s a picture of our stockings.

The pattern for our stockings came from, who else, but Martha Stewart. Use this template by enlarging it on a photo copier to the size you would like to make. All our stockings have contrasting cuffs, and the workroom used the attached cuff template to accomplish this.

Here’s another photo of a stocking that one of our staff designed and had made. She used some tiny collectable Christmas ornaments to give her stocking an Alice in Wonderland theme. This stocking is super creative and beautifully made. As you can see from these photos, make your stocking any size or shape that you desire. You are only limited by your imagination!

If you have heirloom stockings and you don’t want to retire them, you can still make or have others made to use in different places in your home. They can decorate a staircase or hang at the foot of a bed or on a door. Here’s an example from an idea book called Christmas with Southern Living.

Another great way to customize your Christmas decor is to make a matching tree skirt and mantle cloth. A mantle cloth is a great way to bring color to your mantle and give your stockings a pretty backdrop, especially if you are using those pewter or brass stocking holders that sit on top of your mantle. You don’t have to do much more decorating than that! In these pictures that follow, the tree skirt and mantle cloth are not a matching pair, but just examples of what they might look like. You can design them and trim them out any way you choose. They can match your current room’s decor or can be in traditional holiday colors.

Think about it. If you are not able to fabricate them yourself, we can help you design them and refer you to a good workroom. If not for this year, get started early for next year’s Christmas season. Make a design plan and get it in the works early and enjoy your custom made Christmas cheer next year!

As I was flipping through Martha Stewart Living, late in the summer, I happened across an informative article on upholstery and what lies beneath the decorative fabric on a sofa. I was thinking that this information would be great to pass along to my customers, but how? Well, now I can enlighten you with Martha’s information because I am blogging!

I have borrowed this information from an article called Layers of Comfort by Kathleen Hackett, found in the September 2009 issue of Martha Stewart Living. Photographs by Johnny Miller.

With sturdy materials and hand-finished details, a well-crafted sofa can last 20 years, or longer with reupholstering. (1) A frame of kiln-dried maple serves as a solid base. (2) Jute webbing is woven along the back, seat, and arms. (3) Eight-way springs are hand-tied with twine. (4) Cotton batting and synthetic horsehair provide padding under burlap. (5) Down-filled caseing, glazed cotton, and muslin are layered on top. (6) Yellow linen finishes the sofa.

If you know your furniture piece is of good quality, sometimes it’s more economical to reupholster it than to replace it. “The bones of an item determine its value and longevity.” Hackett goes on to describe top-of-the-line frames (TOL) versus mass produced. “A TOL frame, generally custom made, uses 2 inch thick, kiln dried wood, such as poplar, oak, or maple, and is secured with dowels and glue. Mass produced pieces usually have thinner frames that are glued and stapled; lower quality versions are often made of plywood or pressed board.”

Now on to the padding. “Inside the frame, jute webbing lines the seat and back. Eight way springs, tied coil by coil to the webbing offer the most support and flexibility. One type of custom padding calls for horsehair and cotton batting that’s covered with burlap and down filled casing; foam and polyester batting is a less expensive option.”

Then we have the fun stuff: the cushions and the fabric. Hackett offers that the way to prolong the life of upholstery is to opt for removable cushions so that you can turn them over. I agree totally. To fill the cushions, down is the most luxurious, but not the most practical for every day use. Those cushions need fluffing after every sitting. “To minimize fussing without sacrificing comfort, try medium-density foam wrapped in feathers,…..for a springy bounce.” This is also what we would recommend and our furniture line offers a variety of options from “not too soft” to “not too hard.” Now the fabric choice is up to you, and that’s where we would love to help. Remember that silks used for upholstery usually have a backing on them to make them more durable and prevent stretching and tearing. We recommend silk only be used on a piece that is mostly decorative and not going to be used regularly. Most other medium weight fabrics from linen to chennille are appropriate for upholstery. With velvets and suedes you must make sure the nap of the fabric runs in the same direction. An experienced upholsterer will know how to accomplish this.

I was excited to read this article and thrilled to have an outlet to pass this information on to you. If you would like to see how Martha’s upholsterer updated the piece in the picture go to www.marthastewart.com/sofa-makeover.