Blooming big and bold

Inka Custom Textiles’ Celia Drummond recommends you make a big splash when you add some colour to your home.

WALL hangings and cushions are great ways to refresh living spaces without overcommitting, says Celia Drummond.

The Wellington woman is owner/ designer of Inka Custom Textiles, a fabric design and print business that works in commercial and residential areas.

In the home, Celia says wall hangings are becoming a popular way to fill spaces.

‘‘Wall hangings are great way to fill an empty blank wall, rather than wallpaper, or in a bedroom setting if you have a headboard you can put a wall hanging above it and treat it like an artwork.

‘‘They definitely look great in a living space, you can use a wall hanging to visually cordon off an area, you could have a little reading chair and lamp with a wall hanging to make a separate space within a space, or room dividers are coming back in, you could use a big wall hanging in a divider sense.’’

Wall hangings can be anything from 1.5 metres wide and run the whole length of a wall, they can be turned sideways and run the width of a wall, or they can be as small as an A0 poster.

‘‘Wallpaper can be quite expensive and people don’t want to commit to getting that done, whereas a wall hanging is great, it is a big expression, you can change it out and it’s not going to cost through the roof.’’

Large-scale or over-sized florals are on-trend as well as ink blocks or brush strokes, along with classic geometrics inspired by tiles and mosaics.

Colour-wise, on trend right now are bright, strong jewel tones of colour, greens anywhere from lush greens to pine greens to kale and Bordeaux red.

‘‘It’s moving on from those tropical inspirations, but you’ve still got muted celery and sage colours you can fall back on, or millennial pink in a more subdued way in blush or papaya, teamed with more natural beiges or browns.’’

Whatever the trend, the beauty of wall hangings, says Celia, is that they can be personalised.

‘‘Wall hangings are personal, you can do whatever size or pattern you like, you can even use them like a wall mural.’’

Celia has a full-colour digital image in the form of a wall hanging in her own home, a landscape photo taken from the Mt Victoria lookout.

‘‘You can use a straight photo, or manipulate the colours and crop it in different ways before transferring it on to the fabric, there’s nothing you can’t do.’’

Celia takes care of the entire process, from idea, image or pattern through to the end product and having studied textiles at Massey University, she loves nothing more than working with computer-based design tools or creating hand artwork from scratch.

The actual process is called digital sublimation printing, a method that allows full colour images to be printed on various surfaces with a large, inkjetstyle printer and involves printing a design on transfer paper first.

Special machines that use a combination of heat and pressure press the paper on fabric and transfer the design.

‘‘The printer puts down a series of little dots, you take the paper off and heat press it on fabric– 200degC for two minutes— which allows the fabric to open up.

‘‘The solid dye turns into a gas that moves on to the fabric and as that pressure releases and it cools, it’s solid now in the fabric, and you’ve just got the paper left over.’’

The advantages of this method, says Celia, is that unlike screenprinting, there are no high set-up costs, the product is longer lasting and detail is not lost.

‘‘There is a lot of finesse in the resolution of this process, and it will last the life of the fabric.’’

Celia speaks of a series of ‘‘botanicalinspired’’ cushions she has produced from photographs she took at Wellington’s Botanic Gardens.

‘‘I love how the colours and textures have come through, there’s a really nice transition of colours and areas of shadow to light.

‘‘Even the experience of going up to the gardens, taking the photos and then transferring them onto a fabric, it’s quite rewarding when you see things come to life.’’

Cushions are another home interior range Inka is delving into, and again Celia speaks of her botanical series.

‘‘They are bright, floral, oversized and add a really rich pop of colour to a space, and they are easy to change out if you want to go in a different direction.’’

Like wall hangings, cushions can be custom made to any size, colour, or pattern. Standard cushions are popular, but demand is increasing for larger, more Euro-sizes in living spaces and bedrooms.

Colour palettes range from the jewel tone trends, like the bright, lush greens and reds, through to the ever-popular coastal palate in the form of the teal family.

While colours are being mixed and matched and transformed through patterns, Celia says people are also opting to transfer places they love onto cushions.

‘‘’’My botanical-garden inspired cushions are a good example, or Wellington scenes are popular, like Cuba Street or the sketchy, illuminated-style waterfront ones I’ve created.

Having set up Inka after finishing her degree at Massey, Celia especially enjoys creating products from designs she’s based on local inspirations.

‘‘I’ve always loved art and graphic design, so for me this is a natural progression, it’s a great way of putting my work out there but also helping facilitate other people’s ideas into a textile.’’

A recent example is a cushion she was commissioned to create to commemorate a friend of a friend’s engagement.

‘‘We came up with the artwork, a Snapchat/Emoji type cartoon character of her set into a scene that had the Sydney Opera House in the background, which was where she was proposed to.

‘‘People have fond memories of certain places like that, or it might be a bach or beach-type scene that is special to them, and by putting it on a cushion they can have that little piece of nostalgia.’’

On the commercial front, one of Celia’s latest works is a set dressing for the Royal New Zealand Ballet.

‘‘It started with some base inspiration from an old book, from there we changed the colour ways and scales and digitised all the patterns, we used rich jewel tones in keeping with current trends and that was applied to big hanging banners featuring dragon-eagle crests, bedspreads and tablecloths, it was a lot of fun to do.’’

She’s also been working with Wellington-based Tiaki Pilates, Yoga and Physio studio on a floral wall hanging to suit its modern aesthetics, Glory Hair Salon on Bond St and a couple who live in Berhampore.

‘‘Translating ideas into products like that and seeing those visions come to life is an exciting process, and the possibilities really are endless.’’

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For more information go to inka.co.nz