The traditional damask designs of the 18th century, have remained popular since the day they were first woven; more than 200 years later, they are still a fundamental design element of many classically inspired drawing rooms and living rooms.

From their Limoges collection, Northcroft Fabrics offer an authentic replica of an 18th century French fabric, in an extensive colour selection, featuring a typically regal and symmetrical design of stylised flowers and leaves.   Suitable for both upholstery and curtains, Limoges retails at around £44.00 per metre.

• Fabric details:
  . Made from: 50% cotton, 50% modacrylic.
  · Colours: Cream, Beige, Donkey Rose, Brick Red, Maroon,
  Pompadour, Blue, Eau de Nil, Bottle, Gold and Grey.
  · Pattern repeat: 45cms.
  · Width: 140cms.

Limoges can be co-ordinated with Loire, which is a small repeat pattern, designed as a contrasting fabric and available in the same colour selection; both fabrics are fire-retardant to domestic standard and have a soil resistant finish.

Northcroft Fabrics specialises in high quality fabrics in classic designs and offers an extensive selection of fine silks, velvets, damasks and printed fabrics.

Web: http://www.northcroftfabrics.co.uk

Tel: (01628) 488 700

Olli And Lime is an eco conscious designer of children’s bedroom furnishings, aiming to meet the tastes of modern minded parents with an eye for design, who want something fun for their children without compromising on style.

The company has now launched a range of wall panels and soft furnishings with six amusing and contemporary designs to appeal to children of all ages.
 
Also, in line with customers’ growing concerns for the environment, Olli And Lime has ensured that materials in the soft furnishings range are made from 80%/20% environmentally sound bamboo/cotton mix and the wall panels are digitally printed to order, to prevent wastage.

The Range includes:

• Little George and Little Billie - wallpapers and funky soft furnishing designs for babies and small children, based on two charismatic cartoon characters:Little George a brightly coloured, mischievous, funky looking cow and Little Billie featured here, an outrageously dressed, eccentric moose.
   
  George and Billie - George, featuring a busy, buzzy bee and Billie, a range of big, bold flowers, are alphabet and number based series to help toddlers learn to count and spell.
   
  Carrie and Oliver - are for slightly older children and feature two collections with matching wallpaper and soft furnishings:
• Carrie is for young girls who adore shoes and shopping and combines brightly coloured shoes with bold, contemporary flowers.
• For sports crazy boys, Oliver features all ball-sports including football, rugby, tennis, baseball, basketball and cricket.

Web:  http://www.olliandlime.com

Tel:  (0844) 561 6781

Northcroft Fabrics specialises in high quality fabrics in classic designs and offers a vast selection of velvets including plain, striped and Gaufrage in cotton, silk, linen and mohair combinations.

Latest additions to their outstanding collection of velvets are authentic, plain antique velvets made from 100% silk pile and a co-ordinating Gaufrage design.

The Buckingham features a plain, slubbed texture with a closely woven velvet pile and is a natural choice for period properties and grand decorating schemes.

Voltaire is a co-ordinating Gaufrage design made on the Buckingham silk and inspired by 18th century, traditional French fabric designs.

Both fabrics are available in ten traditional colours and are specifically designed for re-upholstering antique furniture and also suitable for full drop formal curtains.

Featured here are the Buckingham and Voltaire both in Brunswick Green.

Buckingham information:
Pile: 100% silk
Construction: antique velvet i.e. slubbed velvet.
Colours stocked: Stone11, Mole 22, Tan 34, Cardinal 44, Claret 54, Aubergine 56, Flanders Blue 64, Brunswick Green 72, Emerald 78, Bronze 86
Plain fabric – no pattern repeat, 137 cms. wide
Retails for around £180 per metre.

Voltaire information:
Pile: 100% silk
Construction: antique velvet i.e. slubbed velvet
Colours stocked: as listed above.
Pattern repeat: 60 cms. 137 cms wide
Retails for around £220 per metre.

Web: http://www.northcroftfabrics.co.uk

Tel: (01628) 488700

Do you have ideas and dreams of creating a unique look in your home, but require a helping hand to put it into action?

John Lewis has lots of solutions, with its array of useful and bespoke services for the home, to enable customers to turn their creative ideas into reality.

A choice of everything from fabric to flooring, and anything in between, to ensure that their home will look and feel exactly how they imagine.

As part of the Standard Furnishing Advice Service, a free one-to-one consultation is available in John Lewis’s stores with one of their experienced Furnishing Advisors, to help turn a favourite fabric, magazine image or simply an idea into a whole new scheme for a room.

Express Furnishing is also now available online and this service is ideal for customers who can’t wait to get cracking with their new look.

The express service will make any soft furnishings from curtains and bed covers, to cushions and blinds to specification in 7 days; with over 200 fabrics to choose from including Designer’s Guild, Osborne and Little and Cath Kidston to fulfil the dream.

Customers can opt for the Premier Service, which is a home visit including measurements, a style board and the attendance of an advisor, to oversee the delivery and fitting, at a cost of just £200, which is refundable against any purchases made.

Web: http://www.johnlewis.com

Tel: (08456) 049 049

This year IKEA is encouraging Britain to become brave not beige and have come up with a multi-coloured range of fresh textile ideas and designs to bring new life into your home.

Many British homes have become safe and similar using neutral beige tones for decoration, due to lack of knowledge of how to use colour and fear of getting it wrong.

IKEA aim to inspire you to be brave and reject your beige rooms, in favour of a vibrant, contemporary home packed with style and panache.

Make your home blossom with hundreds of new designs in textiles at IKEA, where everything is coordinated to help you create the style in your home exactly as you want it.

Our picture reveals just some of the enormous IKEA range of stunning metre fabrics to inspire your own creativity in design, or vivacious ready-made products to dress up your home this spring.

Textiles are the ultimate expression for the home –anything is possible!

Visit the innovative and informative online demos on the IKEA web site, to see how you can furnish every room in your home with textiles to dazzling effect:

Web:  http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_GB

Tel:   (0845) 355 1141

Property expert, journalist and TV presenter Alison Cork is passionate about bargains and became fed up with paying over the odds for homeware, so she searched the UK to find the very best for less and saved thousands of pounds in the process.

In order to share her secrets of where to find top quality goods at substantially reduced prices with you, she has launched a bargain buying website www.homesandbargains.co.uk.

Want to know where the best carpets and rugs are available at half price?

Or, the very best fabric usually shown at the ultra chic Chelsea Harbour - available at up to 80% off?

Now you can when you know where to look!

The website even tells you where to find M&S and Laura Ashley current season furniture at 70% off and where the best hotels sell off their surplus furniture.

Also how to bypass the shops and go straight to the craftsman or manufacturer.

How to get the news about sales before they hit the high street.

Where to find the finest craftsmen and young designers at half the price you would pay in the shops.

The free weekly bargains newsletter tells you where the best bargains are on sale, so that you can plan your shopping trips and save a fortune at the same time.

The website provides a useful archive of all the phone numbers and contacts you will need, plus a discount diary of upcoming events and many informative articles. There are also free weekly giveaways worth thousands of pounds.

Everyone loves a bargain, so visit The Homes and Bargains website to find yours:

Web:  http://www.homesandbargains.co.uk

Northcroft Fabrics has introduced nineteen new vibrant colours to its Rochelle range for the spring and summer, including five vibrant, contemporary hues: cerise, aqua, lime, pea green and silt.

Rochelle is a fine, 100% cotton pile velvet, which wears well and is particularly suited to upholstery, curtains and soft furnishings.

The manufacture of velvet fabrics dates back to the Egyptians 2000BC. Typically, velvets are heavy with a dense, soft pile – ideal for rich, plain colours and synonymous throughout history with royalty, wealth and opulence.
 
There are now 46 colours in the Rochelle range and this fabric is particularly suited to transform a room with accents of colour for cushions or upholstery and for block colour in curtains.

Rochelle is 140cms wide, has a 100% cotton pile and is a plain, cut velvet.  It retails at around £40.00 per metre.
   
Northcroft Fabrics is a specialised fabric house offering a wide selection of high quality velvets, silks, damask and printed fabrics.

Web:  http://www.northcroftfabrics.co.uk
Tel:    (01628) 488700

The Warwick range is the latest new curtain/upholstery fabric from
Northcroft Fabrics, which was inspired by classical 17th century French style.

The striking Warwick fabric is a damask weave with a twill construction, giving it an interesting and unusual texture; the design is set against the beige background in seven colours.

Made from 50% cotton, 43% viscose and 7% nylon, the fabric is suitable for hardwearing upholstery as well as soft furnishings and gently draping curtains.

Warwick is 140cm wide with a 61cm pattern repeat and is available in the following colours:
Beige 12, Brown 22, Red 46, Blue 64, Turquoise 70, Green 72 and Gold 84.

Warwick retails at around £60.00 per metre.

Web:  http://www.northcroftfabrics.co.uk
Tel:   (01628) 488700

Northcroft Fabrics is a specialised fabric house offering a wide selection of high quality velvets, silks, damask and printed fabrics.

Kew, one of the latest curtain/upholstery fabrics from Northcroft, is inspired by contemporary botanical drawings of wisteria, cherry tree, geranium, and nasturtium leaves.

The large scale of the design makes the fabric ideal for making a grand statement and is suitable for light upholstery, curtains and soft furnishings.

The gorgeous fabric is 140cms wide, with a full width design and large pattern repeat of 180cms.

Made from 100% pure heavy silk, it is available in a choice of five complementing colours: Cream 10, Apricot 32, Horizon 62, Green 72 and Yellow 82.
 
Kew retails at around £72.00 per metre.

Web: http://www.northcroftfabrics.co.uk
Tel: (01628) 488 700

Northcroft Fabrics is renowned for its wide selection of high quality textiles including velvet, silk and damask.

The company’s latest fabrics, Nanking and Beijing, in 100% pure silk, are inspired by the European artistic style of the early 1900s.

Nanking is a typical traditional design from the chinoiserie revival that took place then, resulting in 18th Century designs and chinoiserie patterns becoming very fashionable; it is based on a printed scenic toile, whilst Beijing is a co-ordinating semi-plain fabric.

The charming new fabrics, both 140cm wide, are available in six colours: Terracotta 34, Crimson 46, Opaline 60, Pompadour Blue 62, Navy 66 and Iris Green 72.
The fabrics can be used together in a complementary style for upholstery, blinds, curtains, cushions, bedspreads and throws.
    
Nanking has a pattern repeat of 34cm and retails at around £118.00 per metre.
 
Beijing, is a semi-plain, has a pattern repeat of 2.5cm and retails at around £110.00 per metre.

web: http://www.northcroftfabrics.co.uk
tel: (01628) 488 700