Fabulous Fabric

Since deciding on keeping the existing beige paint colour in baby girl’s room, it was time to turn our attention to fabric.

I knew that I wanted the space to be modern, graphic, colourful and versatile for years to come — but, that was it. As for a colour scheme? No clue. No clue at all!

That’s why I love Tonic Living. Their online fabric store {which is Canadian, by the way!} is a super awesome source. So many wonderful fabrics to choose from at reasonable prices. You can’t find fabrics of this quality, variety, etc. at a big chain fabric store. Don’t even bother….I’ve tried!

After snooping around for a bit, this fabric called “Varenna, Coral” caught my attention:

If you follow along in “blogland” at all, you might recall that Stefanie from Brooklyn Limestone used the same fabric in her little gal’s room. Isn’t it amazing? SOLD!

To make sure that we were on the right path, I ordered a swatch of the fabric along with a handful of other samples.

After playing around with all of the options, Ted and I settled on this scheme:

From left to right: “Varenna, Coral”: curtains, “Emilio Cosmo”: throw cushions, “Flatiron, Grey”: crib skirt — all from Tonic Living. The Orange Dot and Khaki Dot fabric samples are from Land of Nod and will likely end up being the crib sheet and/or change pad fabric.

So, I guess you can say our scheme is a mix of cherry-coral-orange-khaki-grey-white awesomeness! It’s totally not what I thought we would end up choosing {I’m eating my words right now — I always said I wouldn’t include “pink” in a girl’s room}, but I love it and so does Ted, which is important because he’ll be spending a lot of time in this space changing dirty diapers, right honey? 🙂

Now, the big debate is whether I should sew the curtains myself, or have the capable folks at Tonic Living do them for me. I’ve sewn curtains before for our living room and they turned out super fabulous {and I really enjoy sewing}, but I just don’t know if my somewhat tired, pregnant body has the energy to complete the curtains. The pillows and crib skirt can be whipped up quite easily — it’s the curtains that have me hesitating a bit. I’ll keep you posted!

As an aside, this isn’t a sponsored post. I happen to really love Tonic Living and am happy to promote a local Canadian business run by exceptional folks. Thanks Janine and Shannon for your help!

I’m on a roll!

After a full day of work in the office, I was itching to get home and sew like a mad woman. After giving Mason a pat hello (and a quick break outside), I ran down to my make-shift sewing space (read: TV trays in front of the couch) and got busy.

On my lunch hour, I found the perfect woven fabric in navy to complement some ikat-inspired fabric that I picked up in Buffalo at Jo-ann’s. I love a deal — and the woven fabric was exactly that at just $2/metre from Fabricland. Score!

I’m very pleased with the finished product, especially the custom piping.

I love how the navy fabric on the back highlights the piping and gives the pillow an entirely different look. I’m also loving the concealed zipper — it’s very forgiving and looks rather sharp.

I’m very pleased with how the textiles for our living room/dining room are coming together. The space is now bursting with colour — navy, orange and white.

Since I started undertaking this project and sharing it on this blog, Twitter and Instagram (you can find me by searching: The236), I’ve had a few requests for custom sewing work. Such a lovely compliment — I just wish I had more hours in a day to sew for others! Maybe one day! In the meantime, I’m having fun scouring fabric shops and sewing to my heart’s content.