Jazz up your living space with African textiles and style
Are you looking around your house or apartment thinking, 'How boring. What can I do to liven things up a bit?'
Why not add some African style into your decor?
Some of our fabrics pretty obviously just 'say Africa'. Others - like our Shwe Shwe fabrics from South Africa - are very subtle and work very well in more traditional settings.
Kudhinda upholstered shoe chairs - Phine Maude Davies
Kudhinda fabrics - designed and hand-screened in Zimbabwe - have been used for furnishing and upholstery since Ros Byrne first launched them many years ago.
But we've never seen anything quite like Phine Maude Davies's totally amazing shoe chairs.
So, what makes Kudhinda fabrics so perfect for upholstery?
- Ideal furnishing weight - 260 grams per metre, approximately
- Robust and long-lasting. We've seen furniture, curtains and housewares that are decades old and still going strong.
- Extra wide - 150 cm, approximately
- 100% cotton, of course
- Striking geometric and wildlife motifs
- Available in three stunning colourways - perfect to mix 'n' match
View and buy: Kudhinda Zimbabwe screen print fabrics
Kudhinda upholstered shoe chairs © Phine Maude DaviesLeft: Ndoro Stripe, Natural colourway Right: Elephant and Headrest, Blue Steel colourway
African fabrics make great curtains
Yup, they sure do - as our creative customers will attest.
Julie Ferguson started out making a block for the Virtual Log Cabin Quilt Project and just kept going... until she had curtains!
Log cabin curtains © Julie FergusonAfrican fabric lampshades - Jenny Hall
Jenny hates waste.
She can't walk by a good charity shop.
And she just can't resist a lonely, discarded lampshade crying out for a new home.
Then there's the off-cuts and end-of-line fabrics we have around the shop.
Put 'em all creatively together and there you have Jenny's latest lampshade creations.
View and buy: Lampshades and African home decor
Top left: Tonka Times lampshadeBottom left: Handpainted Batik lampshade
Bottom right: Blue Tiles lampshade
Musa indigo curtains - Jenny Potter
Jenny's done a super job creating these curtains using our indigo fabrics - hand-dyed, of course, by Musa Jaiteh in The Gambia.
For this fabric, Musa uses carved wooden stamps to apply a wax resist, before dipping the fabric in his indigo vat.
View and buy: Hand-dyed indigo fabrics
Musa indigo curtains © Jenny PotterTimbuktu curtains - Susan Stobbs
African designs are really taking hold in the world of interior design and home decor.
Witness these fantastic curtains by Susan Stobbs.
The fabric she used is from our Woodin Bogolan range, designed and printed by GTP in Ghana.
This is a slightly heavier fabric - 300 grams per metre, approximately - ideal for furnishing applications. 100% cotton, naturally.
Our designs are changing constantly and we've recently unpacked our latest shipment.
View and buy: African furnishing fabrics
Timbuktu curtains © Susan StobbsMud cloth chairs - Jenny Hall
What do you do with that scrappy - or is that crappy? - pair of chairs you picked up in the charity shop?
If you're anything like our own Jenny Hall and you can't stand waste, the answer is obvious. You absolutely must give those chairs a new lease on life.
It's not hard. Really. Here's the recipe:
- Take an old chair or two
- Add a bit of Google and YouTube research
- Combine with our genuine mud cloth from Mali
- Presto: fantastic, eye-catching chairs for home or office
View and buy: Mud cloth from Mali
Also pictured: Original Jenny Hall lampshade creation and African batik curtains
Mud cloth chairs and lamp © Jenny Hall