Etsuko Furuya wall hangings – instant art!

I’ve had this project in mind for some time now, but only just got around to completing it. I don’t know why I waited so long though – I could have had art on the walls long ago!

For the past couple months I’ve been buying pieces of Etsuko Furuya fabric as I find patterns I like. I love the panthers and polka dots of course (I still carry this bag daily!), but also am liking the new Nico collection – those old cars, scooters and the patchwork – love it! I was also happy to have found some of the Bird on a Ball print, which is now out of print.

Anyway, over the weekend, I collected all these pieces and set to work. My idea was to combine all these prints for a series of wall hangings for my office. I didn’t want to just cover each canvas with a different fabric though. Instead I wanted to recombine them into my own patchwork pieces, so I cut out the sections I wanted from each fabric and put them together to form three large patchwork pieces.

Once I was happy with the way the fabrics looked together, I sewed them together to form a piece large enough to cover my canvas. I used a series of three canvases that I already had, or you could buy blank canvases at any craft store. (There happen to be oil paintings of trees on these particular canvases, but I had tired of them as artwork and decided to reuse them for this project.)

The sewn pieces need to be pressed well to ensure the seams lay flat when you cover the canvas. I then simply stapled them to the canvas. Since these fabrics have stripes, as well as the new seams, if you try this at home you’ll want to make sure not to stretch the fabric too much when stapling, or else your formerly straight lines will end up kind of wavy!

I think they’re a great addition to my office, don’t you?