Looking for beautiful botanical curtain fabric- any ideas?

[BoogleMcGroogle]

We are redecorating our dining room in our new house. It's Victorian and I'd love to go for something flowery, but not chintzy. Something really beautiful. Happy for the rest of the decor to fit around the curtains. We have a few watercolours and a large walnut dining table (sideboard tbc). Two windows, one south and one west facing. Floor length curtains. Maybe blue/ greens? It's a special treat so a bit spendy is fine.

Any ideas of where to look welcome 🙂

How spendy? There are some beautiful William Morris fabrics here

As it happens Liberty have a botanical edit on their fabrics page right now ... www.libertylondon.com/uk/edits/botanical-collection/

Some lovely liberty ones there

Voyage Maison have some lovely botanical fabrics

I'm actually thinking about a William Morris design for our snug. John Lewis does a few ready made. I really like them

Those Liberty fabrics are absolutely stunning. I'd been looking at Nina Campbell but like the Liberty ones so much more. Oh, I'm so tempted by silk. We saw a house with a picture window framed by silk curtains. It was gorgeous.

Anyone else getting more traditional in their tastes? I'd have hated this type of thing even five years ago!

Bluebellgray (we got ours from John Lewis) do some lovely watercolour- like florals, we have the Tetbury up and they are beautiful and very easy to coordinate as there are lots of colours to pick out
www.johnlewis.com/bluebellgray-tetbury-pair-lined-pencil-pleat-curtains/p2983261

I've got a lot of silk curtains in my house.

They are beautiful.

However be careful. When I had my first set made I was advised to have an inter-lining.

Didn't see the point.

Later curtains I did have the inter lining.

The curtains without now 10 years old are starting to fray at the sides and I'm having to get them re-hemmed to hide this. There's obviously a point where we can't keep doing this as we will run out of fabric.

The ones with the additional lining are fine.

Upshot is that silk is fragile and if you get silk curtains get them inter lined!!!!

That said they look beautiful - such a lovely soft sheen and the embroidery/printing is lovely.

I agree about interlining silk curtains. Particularly if the window is south facing - they can quickly disintegrate to nothing.

DeRigeurMortis thanks- that's really helpful time know. As it's for a dining room we will only use occasionally, I was planning to keep them tied back and have blinds to pull down day to day. Do you think interlining would still be important?

Yes it's still important.

It's about the support and structure it adds to the silk.

I'm still kicking myself about the ones I didn't have lined.

They cost a fortune and are not routinely used (like in your situation).

Yet the ones that were lined in much used rooms are still fine.

I'm at a point with one pair that I think the only option is to replace them and then repurpose them in a smaller setting having had them lined.

Anyone else getting more traditional in their tastes? I'd have hated this type of thing even five years ago!
Yes! I think it's a reaction to the Scandi-minimalist-white-everything and crap Instagram DIY makeovers using gold spray paint and marble sticky back plastic :)

I want Liberty and William Morris and stately wallpaper. Sadly my budget is more tin of cheap white paint.

@burritofan

Anyone else getting more traditional in their tastes? I'd have hated this type of thing even five years ago! Yes! I think it's a reaction to the Scandi-minimalist-white-everything and crap Instagram DIY makeovers using gold spray paint and marble sticky back plastic :)

I want Liberty and William Morris and stately wallpaper. Sadly my budget is more tin of cheap white paint.

I've always been like this .

Never ever got the love for cold clinical minimal, not to say my house is cluttered (it's not), I just have always loved dark wood and cosy sumptuous fabrics .

Silk, velvet, jewel colours, chandeliers with their diffused sparkling light etc

I'm betting you think my house is a horror story but it's not - and that's not just my opinion (given it was featured in an interior magazine once).

DeRigourMortis it sounds like a fabulous anecdote to wall to wall grey! I adore velvet. I'd love petrol blue velvet sofas.

I was looking up antique chandeliers and silver candlesticks today. The horror! I also really want a Victorian games table. And I'm looking at Yorkshire tweed for our drawing room curtains.

I love the Scandinavian style, but not particularly all-white minimalism. I think of Scandi as light florals, rich woods, contrasting fabrics, cut coloured glass, embroidery. More Swedish summer house than Danish urban perhaps.

I get a lot of inspiration from that style. Our house is an early Victorian farmhouse. I couldn't go too 'grand' and want it to be more Cape Cod than #cottagecore.

Designers Guild have some fabulous botanical fabrics. Other favourites of mine:
Timorous Beasties
House of Hackney
Clarissa Hulse
Cole & Son
Sanderson
Zoffany

My home is a 17th century former farmhouse.

So it is all beams and fireplaces.

I've seen people go for very contemporary styles and I just wonder why you would buy that sort of home and make it into something you could do with a new build!

So back to the subject I'd thought I'd take a picture of the edges of my non interlined curtains.

You can see the standard lining to the left and then the degradation of the silk to the point its now got a hole that means I can only fix by creating a new edge by losing the degraded fabric,

This is after 10 years but the silk curtains I have of a similar age are in perfect conditions.

Duh!

"This is after 10 years but the silk curtains I have of a similar age are in perfect conditions"

I meant to say that the silk curtains I have that were interlined are in perfect condition.