At Home with Pattern

This month we look at the beautiful At Home with Pattern and nature-inspired pattern in the home - one sure way to bring summer indoors! Sally Conran and Katherine Sorrell give you some tips.

We are surrounded by pattern and it is no wonder that patterns derived from nature are at the heart of our urge to decorate our homes. Natural patterns need no enhancement - for inspiration, think of a bird's plumage, a branch of blossoms, a snail shell, a honeycomb, the ripples created by dropping a pebble into a pond, fish scales, or the grain of wood.

Trees, foliage, and flowers, in all forms from representational to highly stylized, are the most commonly occurring of all patterns, and have been so for centuries, especially in the western world. From ancient Egypt to classical Rome, Renaissance Europe to modern times, the most popular motifs for pattern have always been the lotus, palmette, acanthus, 'bent-leaf ' or paisley, and pomegranate. The 'tree of life ' has been another enduring pattern since ancient times, while 'mille-feuilles ' patterns of dense, all-over foliage and flowers have been used on items from 18th century Ottoman embroidery to 20th-century Scandinavia.

In At Home with Pattern we look at the modern type of natural pattern, with a look that is delicate and detailed, often romantic and ethereal, even other-worldly. What these patterns have in common is a very open, fresh feel. Backgrounds are nearly always pale, and the proportion of pattern to field is low - there may be a much greater area of plain background than there is of pattern itself. Colors are, if not monochromatic, generally quite limited, and are usually quite soft and subtle.

The most cutting -edge interpretation of this look employs innovative modern techniques, such as computer -enhanced imagery, digital printing, and laser -cutting, to produce patterns that are pretty and appealing, but which also have a pleasingly contemporary aesthetic. They may use sinuous lines or solid sections of color, they often have a flattened, graphic quality and use surprising colors or play games with scale. This is a young look, very accessible and not necessarily expensive, and can often be applied in intriguing and unusual ways throughout the home.

A more traditional approach, on the other hand, involves traditional craft techniques such as hand -painting, needlepoint, or block -printing, and attempts to imitate nature in a fairly realistic way, with more accurate color renditions, three -dimensional shading, perspective, and a conventional use of scale. The feel is more illustrative, sketchy, or painterly than that of the more modern approach, and the look more mature, sometimes more expensive, though still just as delightful to use.