'The Pressed Flower Collection' was inspired by the pressed flowers that I would gather as a child with my Granny. Many of you who have followed me for a while will know that my Granny was a big influence on me growing up and we would often sit for hours sewing, creating or crafting. One of her favourite things to do was create pressed flower pictures, which as I child I thought was magical. We'd often press our flowers from the garden in pages of heavy hardbacks and then we'd forget which books we'd hidden them in. Years later upon finding them nestled in a forgotten books, I would be instantly transported back to my childhood. My daughter and I have continued the tradition and we had lots of fun pressing flowers as inspiration for this collection. Woven throughout the prints you will find forget me nots, cosmos, mallow and wild geranium to name but a few.
As with every collection that I design, I write a poem as a narrative for the range. For me I really wanted my poem to encapsulate the nostalgia I felt upon finding the long forgotten trinkets nestled within the pages of a book. I found the idea that one flower could symbolise many different things to one person really inspiring and I hope you find your own similar memories woven into the poem.
Look what I have found! Oh look!
Between the pages of a book.
Forgotten trinket, gently pressed,
Nestled amidst the leaves, safe and caressed.
Sleeping floral beauty, what do you dream?
Of bright summer days and dancing beams?
Once vibrant bloom, now delicate and still,
Awaiting longingly to again thrill.
Suspended in time, your colours dwell,
Every different flower has a story to tell.
Each bloom, a chapter, a tale to share,
Hidden amongst quiet pages to transport you there.
A thousand moments, recollections,
Stirring emotions and old affections.
A whispered ode to days gone by,
To carry you there in the blink of an eye.
Relive the summer sun, a haze of heat,
Endless days of youth set on repeat.
Faded sweet fragrance on the breeze,
Dappled light and sunburnt knees.
Not just a flower, but a thought,
Of days gone past and lessons taught.
Plucked with love, in a brief moment of pleasure,
But to me an everlasting treasure.
Colours fade, but you remain.
To remind me of the summer again.
Lets begin by meeting the hero print of my collection, 'Sleeping Bloom.' While I adore this collection as a whole, I must say that this print is my favourite. (Shh! Don't tell the others! ) You'll notice that all of the designs in this collection are drawn with a flat, almost graphical quality. This is intentional as I wanted to give the impression that the flowers were pressed directly on to the fabric as if they were a page from a flower press. The colours in this print are just gorgeous, popping against the backgrounds to create a modern feel. This design comes in 'White,' 'Pale Mink' and 'Light Teal' and I can see it being used in so many projects, from dressmaking to craft projects and of course quilts. I'm beyond excited to see what everyone makes with this.
Throughout this collection I really wanted to convey the feeling of the flowers being pressed. I had lots of fun with this in my secondary print, 'Floral Ode' by scattering parts of the petals across the design. We often find that when we press our flowers, the petals separate with time and come away from the original flower and by adding this element to the design your eye is drawn around the tossed print, creating a natural flow and energy. 'Floral Ode' is available in 'White,' 'Light Teal' and 'Light Charcoal Grey.'
I absolutely adore Cosmos flowers and couldn't wait to draw them for this fabric. For me, 'Floral Affections' is about conveying the joy of holding that memory created by the pressed flower in your hand and reliving it whenever you see that little floral trinket. Like the previous two designs, 'Floral affections' is a tossed print and as with 'Floral Ode' I deconstructed the flowers by separating the leaves and petals to draw your eye around the print. You can find her in 'Light Teal,' 'Mink' and 'Light Charcoal Grey.'
Meet 'Timeless Blossom.' She is one of the co-ordinates in the collection and she comes in 'White,' 'Pale Mink' and 'Deep Taupe.' In this range, I wanted to incorporate lots of tossed prints to emulate the organic movement that the pressed flowers naturally have on a page, however 'Timeless Blossom' is in fact the only directional print in the range. This was intentional because I didn't want all of the designs to look too similar. It also felt nice to have a design which matched the vivacity of live flowers, which I tried to achieve by drawing all of the flowers 'growing' in one direction. I kept the 'pressed flower' look by detaching some of the leaves and drawing the flower heads face on.
Finally, I would like you to meet 'Pressed Posy.' Available in 'Light Teal' 'Cerise' and 'Light Charcoal Grey,' this is definitely a fabric you will want in your stash! Being a blender I knew from the beginning that I wanted the design to be a small print. I paired back the detail in the flowers as I wanted a simple design to compliment the other fabrics rather than distract from them. This little tossed, ditsy blender will be so useful in many craft projects, from bias binding, to quilt bindings and bag linings, this blender is the perfect size to complement your creations.
I hope you've enjoyed coming on this journey with me and learning a bit more about the inspiration behind the collection. You can find ‘The Pressed Flower Collection’ in all good fabric shops from February 2025. To view the full collection just click HERE.
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