Cushion collection styled with Annie Sloan paint!

We had some fun creating this little animation to show off how beautifully our fabric collection compliments the chalk paint colours from the lovely Annie Sloan!

Perfect fodder for a Friday afternoon... More soon, so stay tuned!

Bon weekend,

Abigail & Ryan

abigail*ryan - Our New Collection, Photo-shoot...

 

We thought we would stop in and share some photos from our recent photo shoot, which took place in early September.

Our wonderful photographers, Brideen Baxter and Deci Gallen at Photography by Brideen were a dream to work with, and we're delighted with the finished images. Thank you so much B&D! We had such fun styling the photos, and it was a really intense (and long) day, but utterly worth it.

Our NEW fabric and cushions will be ready, and in the shop very soon and our wallpaper is online right here!

We hope you love the new pictures, and collection, as much as we do!

A&R

Press for abigail*ryan!

 

We have some pieces from our new collection in two lovely Irish magazines this month, and they are on new-stands now!

First, we have House & Home magazine, which has featured our stack of Cushions on their back page as part of the editors top 10... thanks so much to the team at House & Home!

Secondly, we have our brand new Fabric Yardage (available online at the end of November) in Ireland's Homes Interiors & Living magazine, in a special feature about domestic fabrics... gorgeous pieces, and we were delighted to add a pop of a*r colour to the spread! Thanks to the IHIL team.

Both magazines are on new-stands now.

A@a*r

Our new abigail*ryan Collection - a Preview...

Well, hello! I'm feeling especially chipper as the sun is well and truly shining in Belfast, we've just spent the last couple of hours sitting on our deck knitting and I am full of the joys of Spring (yes, I know it's almost Summer, but as we skipped Spring, I don't want to get too ahead of myself!)...

Sandals on, Sunglasses at the ready! Perfect. 

We have a brand new collection for Home to unveil and preview, too, which is something I'm also really happy about! 

We received the first shots back from the photographer last week, so we could finally put the items up on our site to preview for the next couple of weeks as we wait for final stock to arrive... it's been a real labour of love, so we hope you like the new designs as much as we do. 

Cue: Wallpaper, Napkins, Cushion collection (and soon, Yardage!)...

xo A@a*r

New Collection Debut at Pulse...

We're back from our annual Pulse London trade show, where we launched our brand new collection of Wallpaper, Yardage and Scatter Cushions...

We presented each colour way as a mini collection (though, you know us and what we like, they also look incredible all MIXED together!) to show each line clearly! We were very proud of our display as we brought it all in just two suitcases all the way from Belfast... Flat pack or what?!

We wanted to say a huge thank you to all the press, buyers and fellow designers who popped by our stand and were so complimentary. A lot of people recognised our Wallpaper from the lovely post Holly at decor8 blog wrote last week, or even made a special trip to seek us out after seeing the new designs explode all over Pinterest! HUGE thanks to Holly, and to everyone who has been so incredibly supportive and positive about the collection. 

We were also really delighted to be given a top ten favourite 'confessions of a design geek loves' tag - COADG was the official blogger for Pulse, and also interviewed us last week, too! Check it out right here...

We are beyond delighted, and humbled.

One of the highlights of Pulse was a lovely designer from Sanderson stopping by to say hello! (Via Holly!) She sees some of the most fabulous wallpapers around and I was so touched when she told me ours were really original, with nothing else quite like them out there on the market... Amazing! I'm so sorry I can't recall the lovely lady's name, but if you're reading this - thank you!! :)

Shows are always fun, especially the social aspect. So great to catch up with our lovely fellow designer friends... great chat and gorgeous collections from Kiss Her by Bianca Hall, Dear Prudence, Mary Kilvert, Helen Lang Wet Paint, Tori Murphy, Jessica Hogarth, Jessica Hayes-Gill and Janey Whitehorn... also so nice to see Zeena Shah, Ham, and Peris and Corr visiting! I'm sure I've forgotten some people!

Big love,

A&R

Half-Price Cushion Clearance!

To make way for our new collection in a few weeks, we are having a big spring clearance at abigail*ryan!

All cushions are reduced to £30 from £59.50 and come with FREE worldwide shipping when you enter the code 'SPRINGCLEAN' at checkout...

Treat yourself, and your sofa, to something gorgeous, bright and colourful this Spring! Grab your favourite before they're gone, as there are only a few of each design left.

Shop all half price cushions here! Enjoy.

A&R

a*r in Red Magazine...

We were absolutely delighted when our friend Kelly alerted us that one of our cushions at Liberty has ended up gracing the pages of the March edition Red Magazine! I have been reading Red since it launched, and have always loved it...

We were even more delighted when we actually saw the spread and the feature, Pretty Modern, which has me gasping at the gorgeous colour-palette and beautiful cyclamen blooms adorning the pages... our Sycamore Scatter cushion in Coral & Seafoam is sitting atop a gorgeous stack of home textiles, and looks very happy in it's good company ;)

A big thank you to Mary Norden, Red's Interiors Director who styled the shoot, Polly Wreford who photographed it, and Liberty who provided the cushion. It's made our week!

Don't you just love the colour story?! Bright.Bazaar has the whole feature up on his blog - so be sure to check it out if you don't have your copy yet...

A@a*r

abigail*ryan at Liberty...

We excitedly mentioned a few months ago that we had success at the Liberty Best of British Open Call and that our cushions would soon be in store, and online, with Liberty. Well, it's all happened and they are there!

... we were delighted to spot our cushions on the shelves in the home department when they shared a picture of the launch of Timorous Beasties new range for the shop on facebook. If you look past the lovelies in front, you can JUST spy our lovely cushions stacked up on the shelves behind ;)

In addition, we're in the Liberty Magazine this month - which can you can pick up in store, or browse online, right here.

They also interviewed us for their lovely blog so you can read a little bit more about ourselves and how we started (and hear us gush some more about the beautiful shop itself!) by clicking on over.

xo!

Images all by Liberty London.

Trade Shows, Awards and Best of British...oh my!

Hi everyone - it's been too long, but we're back with some super news, and a whole host of happenings to share!

Where to start??

Well, first of all -you all knew we were preparing for our first Trade Show at Pulse London... well, it went really brilliantly, we had such a good time and were so pleased with our stand! To top everything off, and to our extreme shock, we won an award!

'Best New Launchpad Exhibitors at Pulse 2011' to be exact, and judged by the lovely Michelle Alger (of Britains Next Big Thing, fame), Buying Manager for Home at Liberty... as you can see by the huge smiles on our faces, we were not expecting it at all! Thankfully, I had been be-decked with paper eye-lashes from Paperself for the occassion...not that I knew there was GOING to be an occasion... handy, that! ;)

Ahead of going to Pulse, we had received some wonderful news after attending Liberty's Best of British Open Call back in April...when we had hotfooted it down to London for a few days to pitch our products to the buying team at the world famous store (and my personal Mecca!) - and a whole 3 minutes later - we just had to wait and see...

Delightfully, we were successful, and received an order for Cushions. It is certainly a career highlight for us, especially for me, as it has always been a dream of mine to have my designs sold in Liberty - so we are over to moon to be adding them as an official stockist. You can see some images of the Liberty Open Call on their facebook page... you might even spot me, looking utterly hideous in a photo, with our cushions in front, looking MUCH lovelier, thankfully... ;)

SO - we came home from Pulse to start work on our Liberty order, which was no small undertaking, but thankfully, after sewing our socks off (Ryan even roped me in!) they were all ready to head off in to the wide world at the end of last week...

That, really, is what we have been up to... so you'll hopefully forgive our silence! We have lots more to share shortly, including some new stockists added to our list so we will be profiling them... and other bits and bobs, too.

We will be back with those very soon. Happy Monday all, we've missed this space!

xo Abigail@ abigail*ryan

Kitchen Table right now...

Our little homewares empire has more than spilled out of our upstairs workshop and we now do much of our work at the kitchen table... oh the GLAMOUR! ;)

We're currently dreaming of a nice (and hopefully not too distant) Garden Studio. ahh... lovely...

We are in the middle of two large orders (one huge!) and it's nose to the grindstone to get the main part of these done ahead of Pulse at the beginning of June - which we are getting very excited about...

Really just stopping in to say a big hello and that we aren't dead. Honest...

Dead folk can't sew this many cushions!! ;)

See you soon... A@a*r

(Patch)Working...

As explanation for the little silence here on a*r blog, we've been working our little fingers to the bone on all sorts of fantastic projects recently!

One we're delighted to share with you today are the one off patch-worked floor cushions we are creating from Irish linen and our exclusive cottons! We're so excited about these, and I am loving the patterns and juxtapositions of bold colour Ryan is creating here - so dreamy.

Each floor cushion we create will be a unique one off piece, never to be created quite the same again... we can't wait to see what homes these will go to!

It's a great job to LITERALLY be creating the fabric of people's lives and homes ;))

More on these soon!

Abigail@abigail*ryan

Dahlia's burst forth!!

This feels like it's been a long time coming! ;)

We finally have our brand new cushions uploaded and online in the shop... yay!

Large and exuberant Dahlia blooms, scattered over a beautiful true grey background, you can choose from duck egg blue, pink (with a touch of heather to it!) or spring yellow. Each cushion is hand sewn by us, and backed with locally milled Irish linen.

These make a really special focal point in your home (and I hope Ryan will let me keep some for ours!!) so we hope you love them as much as we do!

Browse all our cushions, including the new dahlia's, right here...

A@a*r

Birds of a Threader...

Abigail and I both love the work of illustrator Charley Harper (so much that i'm sure we'll do a much longer post on him one day!), so we were both delighted when we saw these wonderful, hand-painted, needlepoint canvases on The Purl Bee, the rather marvellous blog of craft boutique Purl Soho.

Each would make a marvelous wall hanging or cushion, and would be a fabulous way of having your very own piece of Harper's stunning work in your home.

We're thinking very, very carefully about which one we may have no choice but to invest in..!

ryan@abigail*ryan