How To Mix Fabrics- Guest Post!

I am so excited to introduce all of you to my good friend Liz, over at Designing Domesticity. She has an amazing way of putting together a room. I only wish I had that ability. She is my go to girl for all kinds of design questions. She is the one who thought to turn our dining room into a library! She even but together the floor plan for the library as well as our family room. She rocks! 


So without further ado...


Hi everyone, I'm Liz from Designing Domesticity. 

I am so excited to be here today - thanks, Sarah, for the invite!

Sarah and I go way back, we're talking high school! 

(Oh, the stories I could tell - which goes both ways, I am sure.)

It's been great to reconnect in blog-world!

Anyhoo...

Over on Designing Domesticity, I'm sharing my fabric selections for new pillows in our living room, but I thought I might take it a step further here, and share with you my philosophy on mixing fabrics. 

Here goes!

When mixing fabrics, I always try to include a little bit of everything while continuing a color connection through each fabric.

Traditionalists will tell you to mix a solid, paired with a stripe, plaid and floral. 

To mix it up, I like to add a print (either big or small depending on the size of your floral) and a geometric.

Here's a look at our living room so you can see what we are working with.

 And here's the whole scheme I choose to work in living room.

The break down:

The first fabric I choose was the multi-colored stripe; which has recently been turned into draperies. 

It was the jumping off point for the rest of the fabrics - meaning all the other colors/fabrics were pulled from it. Looking at the image of our living room, you can see that many of the colors in the fabric are already used throughout the room.

The solid quilted fabric is actually a pair of existing pillows that I have; the golden yellow can be found in a small stripe in the drapery fabric as well as the suzani and the plaid. 

The suzani/floral pulls out the red/coral color from the stripe and is also similar to the color of my couch. Plus it incorporates greens, yellows and blues which are all working together in this room.

The small scale plaid incorporates the coral, yellow and green. Believe it or not, this is actually the same fabric that currently covers my dining room chairs. Incorporating it into the living room will definitely help to create great flow from room to room. 

The green geometric is a fabric that I fell in love with immediately. Adding the plaid fabric was key to incorporating the green geometric, as it carried the color story from one fabric to the next. Adding the green ribbon trim will also help to highlight the green.

Phew, that was a lot to get through! 

Hope you are still with me.

Here is another scheme that I considered for our living room. 

You can see the same rules apply - a solid, floral, small stripe and a large scale print. 

It's definitely a more traditional scheme.

Ultimately, this scheme was a little muted and dark for the new lighter look I wanted, so we went in a different direction. 

One last tip for you: 

Throw pillows are inexpensive and can be easily changed out to revamp the look of an entire room. It's really the best place to go a little crazy and incorporate the more trendy or whimsical fabrics.

Every room needs a bit of whimsy after all!

Other posts you might enjoy:

How to make your own Window Panels

Creating Flow in your Home

Until next time, 

Liz

Be sure to stop over and visit liz and leave some comment love, guest posters love comments too!!