Julie Paterson is a British-born artist & textile designer, and the founder and designer at cloth fabric. She believes in the power of strong cups of tea, long walks, and natural fabrics, with hemp being one of her favourites. Today' we feature their cushions, furniture, rugs & art produced by hand, some exclusively for Temple & Webster. Read on for an insight into Julie's creative process - and for more, follow her on Instagram @clothjulie. Julie and her team also run workshops at their Darlinghurst retail space - visit their website for details.

Kitchen chairs

I was driving west along Parramatta Rd escaping the city heading for the mountains when something bright and familiar flashed by in the corner of my eye. "I think I saw my fabric" I said to Amanda. She obligingly did a loop around the back and pulled up outside Michel's Upholstery - a very 60's looking slightly ramshackle shopfront with all my lovely fabric off cuts upholstered onto these groovy old kitchen chairs. It was a Sunday but luckily Michel was in. He kindly put all the chairs out for me to photograph. And he made my day.

 

View from 1 Bligh St
I have just recently become an ambassador for the Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife. The plan is to do some fabric designs for them to help raise money for buying up special bits of the Australian bush. One of the designs will be based on an urban city scape, so last week I was invited  up to the 45th floor of 1 Bligh St in Sydney's CBD - the very first 7 star environmentally rated office building in this part of the world - and began some preliminary drawings for the project. Such a great view.



My postcard wall
When ever  I go away somewhere nice I take coloured pencils and  bits of cardboard to draw the view. Sometimes I send these cards home to my family and friends in the UK and various parts of the world  and sometimes I send them home to myself. It feels great to receive in the mail a picture drawn on holidays with some words written where it was drawn. Really captures the spirit. This card wall shows many of my south coast jaunts, a recent trip to New York, the scenery around the Blue  Mountains and of course the countryside of England.



New work in my studio
This is what greeted me when I opened up the doors to my studio this week. We'd had our modest little kitchen in the mountains revamped over the holidays and during the course of reorganising I found all sorts of interesting bottles and beakers and paraphernalia that Amanda had been collecting over the years. This inspired me to start a new group of works called 'From my Girlfriends Kitchen'.  You can find some of these pieces on the website.



In the shop
We have a trade show coming up in a week or two called Life in Style. We haven't done a trade show for a few years so it is quite exciting  seeing all our collective ideas coming together. This image shows one corner of the shop where we are working like demons on the sewing machine getting it all sorted. That pumpkin coloured over dyed hemp is just such a delicious colour don't you think?



Early work
I've been asked to write a book. This makes me very happy as  I love writing. So I've started collecting groups of my early paintings together to show the direction and story behind the fabric designs. These pieces were some of my very very first, done in the late 1990's. They were paintings based on aerial views of the local landscape and became the ideas  for my  Spotcheck and Two up designs.



Circle work prints
These screen prints were meant for the T+W event but they didnt dry in time to make it in! There are other pieces like them but these particular little cuties will instead get put up on our own website in a few weeks. So if you miss out,   keep an eye out for the Vegemite lid circle work prints. Quite a tasty bunch too.



Sunroom wall at home
I'm a bit of a collector of odd things with interesting shapes and colour. I generally am attracted to the battered and worn - stuff that shows its age. Found bits of wood I often paint on and just prop up on shelves in groups. They often stay there for years acting as some kind of quiet inspiration for me.



Cushion prep
We love experimenting at cloth. Often trying out different colours and print combinations, overdying drops of fabric just to see how they will turn out. This length of white printed cotton organdie was in last weeks turguoise batch. It turned out really well, and what's more there is enough to make a big batch of cushions for T&W. So cutting the samples was my job last Saturday.



So I'm on the train back from the mountains on Monday morning with the circle work artwork pieces that are now dry enough to travel . And I get the idea that maybe we could give one away as a special treat to someone. Good idea thinks the Temple & Webster team, so I've taken a quick snap and here it is - one of the 7 Vegemite lid circle work screen prints on recycled plywood photographed whilst travelling to Sydney on the 10.10 train from Blackheath. Talk about spontaneous!

Follow Julie on Instagram @clothjulie