Colours! Neutral, or bold? One fabric, or mix them up? It’s decision time, the next step when you’ve completed a tapestry and want to have it made into a cushion.

Jolly Red stitchers come up with all manner of fabulous ideas when sending in their parcels for our needlepoint Making Up Service. We see so many different ways of making up our designs, and we’ll showcase a particular design or set of designs here on the blog, to share with you some of the colour and fabric combinations we’ve seen.

At the same time we’ll let you know about any new fabrics that we have in stock – always very exciting!

Today the spotlight – or should it be a beam of sunshine – is on Camelcade, our splendid camels design which is a favourite among globetrotters and armchair travellers alike.

With its muted colours and oatmeal background, Camelcade often finds itself either in rooms with similarly neutral palettes, or providing a calm corner in a busier scheme.

Since our initial Camelcade blog post, we have introduced a parter tapestry – Camel Trek – for Camelcade. They each share the same wool colours so if you stitch both you can make them up as a pair.

Cotton fabric  Cotton piping and backing provides a crisp, clean finish to your tapestry. We are pleased to report that we have tracked down four new cottons that will complement Camelcade’s colours really well.The new shades are pictured below with some of our existing range. New shades are indicated in red.

We have (from the left) aubergine, biscuit – then our four new shades, grape, fawn, mocha and cocoa  – and hazelnut on the right. The new shades have a lovely texture and look to them, and we’re particularly pleased to have found a ‘heathery’ cotton (grape), as well as a soft brown (cocoa).

Below, more colours in our existing cotton range, also possible options for your Camelcade tapestry:

If you definitely want neutral colours for your Camelcade, here are the cotton fabrics all in one place:

There are always other colour to choose from beyond the obvious ones. We liked Vivien’s Camelcade with its dark red cotton piping and cream backing. Very stylish!

Here are more of our cotton fabric, including Vivien’s red, Raspberry JRCR03:

Sue used a lovely green – JRCG05 Willow – for the piping and backing of her Camelcade, which really brings out the two green bands in the design.

Here we are, with a side view of Sue’s cushion:

Here are the green cotton fabrics that we stock, a versatile range from yellowy lime through to bottle green. You can see our full range of cotton fabrics here.

Velvet If you think your Camelcade would suit velvet, two of the most popular colours in our velvet range are the light terracotta, and raspberry red.

Here light terracotta velvet piping is paired with a very soft green backing:

Another option in the velvet is a coffee brown (below), and we have a darker brown too.

Raspberry red velvet, a popular choice. Take a look here if you’d like to see our full velvet range.

Wool mix fabric We can hardly believe our luck that we can offer you two new shades in our woolly fabric. The colours, shown below, are buttermilk and hacienda, with clay on the right.

Buttermilk and hacienda are both good choices if you’d like to stay with neutral, soft shades for your camels.

Again, you don’t have to stick with terracotta or gold fabric choices. Mrs.Gee made a few changes to her Camelcade design and we made her cushion up with a border in our heather wool mix fabric.

Here it is again, seen from the side:

Mairead’s Camelcade illustrates really well how a terracotta border – we used clay here – works well used with the heathery woolly.

And here again, the side view:

And another unusual choice, this time red woolly piping with grey backing:

For more Camelcade inspiration, take a look at our albums on Jolly Red’s Facebook page – just click the ‘Photos’ link at the top of the page, and you’ll find the albums in with our photos. There are many more albums beside Camelcade!

If you still aren’t sure about the colours you’d like to use for your completed needlepoint – Camelcade or otherwise – give us a call on 01460 281111 or email kelly@jollyred.co.uk, and we’ll help you go through your options.

Happy stitching!

Kelly

PS Our Newsletter We send out an email newsletter roughly every month, so do sign up for updates, little secrets, and the latest from our Somerset workshop. We have a strict policy of not bothering you if we think your inbox will be groaning under the weight of dozens of other newsletters. We only mail you if we have genuine news.

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