Our wool mix fabric provides a cosy and substantial backing for a cushion. It’s hardwearing and has a slightly rustic feel. If you’ve finished a tapestry and need a sturdy and practical fabric for the backing, our woolly range may well be for you.
We don’t have as many colour options as we do in our range of cotton fabric for your tapestry. That said, the shades that we have are great and it’s worth bearing in mind that you can mix our fabric ranges, perhaps having cotton piping and woolly backing or vice versa.
Let’s look at the woolly colours that we have, starting with the reds: 
Red and turquoise work well with many Jolly Red designs, and we often see the colours used together for Seaside Sampler and Union Jack Russells.
The intense colours of the woolly fabric make them ideal as borders and backing for our A-Z Animals series. Shown here is Anna’s A for Ark, which has a 3″ border of Carnation JRWR01 and contrast piping in Turquoise JRWB04.
On to the terracottas, with a nice variety from the quiet Hacienda JRWY08 which is good for Camelcade, to pingy Pumpkin JRWY03, often used as piping and backing for Ba-Ba-Bloom and Birds.
On to the yellows. Sadly, our Old Gold has recently disappeared and is no longer being manufactured. We still have lots of Buttermilk JRWY07, which is a nice pale yellow as you can see on the Magic Flowers tapestry, below.
If you’re looking for an ‘old gold’, take a look at our velvets as we have one there.
For a neutral yellow, Buttermilk JRWY07 is lovely. Used here on Magic Flowers, it demonstrates that you don’t always need to choose a strong colour for the piping and backing of your tapestry.
On to the greens, from Bright Lime JRWG01 through to Bottle Green JRWG05, and including Teal JRWG06 which as you’d expect is greeny blue…or bluey green. It’s a lovely colour, either on its own or as contrast for Magic Flowers in particular.
Busy in the workshop, and another Old English Hen is ready to go home! This one has Clay JRWY02 piping and Grass JRWG03 backing.
The blues! June 2022 update Sadly, Indigo JRWB03 is no longer available.
Eileen’s E for Elephant has a turquoise border (3″ all round) with contrast green piping:
Joshua’s Alphabet Ark with mitred border in Navy JRWB05 and contrast piping in Red JRWR06…and…
…backing in Cornflower JRWB01.
Theodore’s Alphabet Ark looked wonderful in two shades of blues. We used turquoise woolly JRWB04 for piping, and the darker blue Indigo JRW03 for backing…other blues are available as Indigo has been discontinued.
There are many contrast colour combinations that work well with Alphabet Ark, purple piping and red backing, charcoal piping and pumpkin backing…and very many others.
Grey fabric continues to be a popular option. Use one grey on its own for piping and backing, or mix them up. Charcoal JRWG04 is a great colour for piping, often used with a lighter grey for backing. Again, the combinations are endless!
For Nicola’s Ba-Ba-Birds cushion, she chose Rhino JRWG02 for piping and Charcoal JRWG04 for backing. A very nice combination!
Here we are choosing fabric for a Ba-Ba-Bloom, Black piping and Pumpkin backing
Here’s Bloom-Pah-Pah, with a striking Black JRWG05 piping and Terracotta JRWY05 backing.
Finally, the purple woolly fabric, which includes two shades of a very ‘purply purple’ and a lovely heather. We used to have a very nice damson shade but our stocks have long gone, and…you’ve guessed it…the shade has been discontinued by the manufacturer. We do have alternatives in our cotton and velvet ranges so take a look at all of our fabric ranges for other options. There are some fantastic damsons among our cotton fabrics.
We used Violet JRWP04 for Delilah’s gorgeous Butterflies Sampler.
Delilah’s Butterflies again, with the view from the top:
Checking availability of particular colours/fabric We keep very good stock levels but some lines are discontinued by the manufacturers, often with little or no warning. Please email kelly@jollyred.co.uk or call Jolly Red on 01460 281111 if you need to check that a particular colour is in stock.
Fabric swatches (UK only) Email kelly@jollyred.co.uk if you’d like us to send you any particular swatches, or call on 01460 281111 to have a chat about a tapestry that you’ve finished. We see lots of tapestries and can usually recommend colour and fabric combinations that have worked very successfully before.
Posting your tapestry Take a quick look at our handy checklist before you head out to the post office. We remind you to hold your tapestry up to the light to check for missed stitches, to resist the urge to trim down your canvas (we need the edges so we can stretch the canvas) and to send your work in by a ‘signed for’ method.
Once it’s all packed up…
Christmas deadline Every year is different and because we never know how many tapestries will be arriving at the last minute it’s fhard for us to set a deadline date. Please send your tapestries to us throughout the year to help us to avoid a last minute rush, or a possible disappointment if our sewing ladies are snowed under.
We can make up non-Jolly Red tapestries if we have the capacity to do so. If you are a very prolific stitcher of both Jolly Red and other brands this will ensure that all of your tapestries are made up to the same high standard. At very busy times of the year we do have to prioritise Jolly Red tapestry kits.
Sending a tapestry from overseas If you will be sending in a tapestry from overseas please contact us as we can advise you about the best wording to use on your parcel to avoid any customs charges.
Happy stitching, and we look forward to hearing from you and to adding the final touches to your tapestry.
Kelly
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