Tree of Life is one of our most versatile tapestry designs. It’ll take pride of place at home on your favourite armchair or sofa, and will look wonderful in a conservatory or summerhouse. With space between the tree and the lower border of the design, there’s always the option to stitch dates and/or initials if you’d like to personalise your Tree of Life for a wedding or anniversary.
We recently had a bumper crop of Tree of Life canvases in the workshop to be made into cushions, and they looked fabulous together. We couldn’t resist photographing them! Today we’ll look at some of the fabric we used to make these tapestries into cushions, and also admire some others that we’ve made up in the past.
As always, there are two main decisions for you to make about your tapestry:
1. Which fabric you would like us to use (either cotton, velvet or wool mix).
2. The colour (or colours) you’d like us to use for piping and backing of your cushion.
It’s time to see fabric and colour combinations that have worked for other stitchers. First under the spotlight is Sue’s tapestry, in crisp cotton: 
We used Bright Lime JRCG04 for Sue’s Tree of Life. All of our green cotton fabric options are shown below. You can choose one colour for piping and backing as Sue did, or a contrast piping so click here to see our entire range of cotton fabric.
Terracotta is a popular choice for both piping and backing of Tree of Life. A neutral shade will work well if you’d rather not add more colour with the piping and backing of your cushion.
More cotton fabric, below:
On to our wool mix fabric, and terracotta is always a popular choice for Tree of Life. For this trio we used Terracotta JRWY05:
Terracotta picks up the border colour of the design really well – and also looks good on most sofas!
For a slightly stronger border colour, you could choose a red:
Seen here from the side, the red looks slightly darker than the terracotta:
Here is our selection of red woolly fabric. Some of the shades are very close, so call us on 01460 281111 if you’d like us to post you out any samples.
The terracotta woollies, from pale Hacienda JRWY08 (good for Camelcade) through to Terracotta JRWY05 which is especially popular for Autumn Leaves.
You can see the full range of our wool mix fabric here. On to the velvet fabric now, and Stephen chose Old Gold piping JRY01 and Lincoln Green backing JRG02 for Kirsten and Oliver’s celebratory Tree of Life cushion.
A close up of Stephen’s cushion. The space below the canopy of the tree is so useful for names and dates!
Yellow velvets, through to brown:
And the greens, from Pale Green JRG01 to JRG03 Bottle Green. Please note that our stocks of Mid Green JRG04 are very low, and it has now been replaced by a more jade green – which is just as nice, but slightly different.
You might decide to do something completely different. For a very bright look, you could try bright red velvet piping and fuchsia backing.
We really liked this gorgeous Family Tree of Life, with names stitched above and below the tree and a little robin in the border.
Purple velvet was a great choice for border, piping and backing as it echoes the colour used for most of the names.
Below are our purple and red velvet fabrics. For more velvet inspiration for Tree of Life and any other tapestries that you may have finished, take a look here at the full range of shades we have in stock.
Before sending in your tapestry The fabric world is constantly changing and fabrics are occasionally discontinued so please do get in touch to check that your chosen fabric is still available, particularly if the tapestry you’ve stitched is going to be part of a series and you’d like them to match.
Fabric swatches We are happy to send swatches of fabric to UK addresses and can give advice over the phone – on 01460 281111 – if you aren’t sure about colours for your tapestry, even if it isn’t a Jolly Red design.
How to send When sending your tapestry to us, do use a Signed For method so that you’ll know that it’s arrived safely – or be able to track it in case it’s held up anywhere en route. You don’t necessarily need to send it in a tube. We encourage recycling so re-use a jiffy bag if you have one to hand, that’ll be fine.
Payment Our current prices for making up can be seen here. There are four ways to pay: call us on 01460 281111 to arrange payment if you’d like to pay by BACS transfer, credit/debit card, or Paypal (we can send you a PayPal invoice). If paying by cheque please make it payable to ‘Jolly Red’.
Send your tapestry to us at:
Jolly Red Making up Service
Unit 4B Walronds Park
Isle Brewers
Somerset
TA3 6QP
That’s it, so happy stitching if you’re finishing off a tapestry and we look forward to making it up into a beautiful family heirloom for you.
Staying in touch Do remember to sign up for our tapestry talk newsletters if you’d like to hear about our new designs as they appear, and receive secret treats and discounts. We send newsletters roughly once a month, and only send them when we have something to say.
