Decorate Your Home with Fabric

Q: I love the idea of using more patterned fabrics as decor, but so far all I can think to make with them is curtains, pillows, or quilts. How else can I decorate with fabric around my home? I’d like to try something more interesting and unusual.

A: There are many ways to add variety and spark to your home by decorating with fabric. I collect textiles online and in my travels. I hang them on walls, drape them over sofas or chests, turn them into quilts, frame them, or use them to make table linens. They also look great turned into wall panels or pressed under glass on a desktop. Here are a few ways you can decorate with fabric to add excitement to your home.

Cafe Curtain Rings & a Rod

If the fabric is hemmed or has a decorative edge, such as fringe or tassels, just use cafe curtain rings. Clip them onto one edge of the fabric. Once they’re in place, slide them over a curtain rod. Then hang it on a wall like a curtain. Support the rod on brackets. Spread the fabric out as straight as possible along the rod, instead of letting it hang in folds like a curtain.

This will not hang the fabric completely evenly—the fabric will gather or droop a bit between the rings. However, this can be an effective way to display a pretty bit of material. It’s also a great way to cover up a damaged or unsightly area on a wall, such as over an electrical panel box.

Framed Fabric

This is a simple way to display fabrics, and the best way to show off rare, fragile, or small fabric items. Just display them surrounded by a mat under glass in a frame. This will keep dust and water splashes away. If you use UV glass, you’ll avoid exposing the fabric to light damage. An acid-free mat will keep the fabric from discoloring where it touches the mat’s paper.

If you use a variety of frames in different sizes or shapes, you can cluster a number them together. Or mix framed fabrics with framed prints, to create a charming feature wall.

Over Panels, Canvas, or Stretcher Bars

Decorating walls with fabrics such as printed toiles or moiré silks instead of paper on walls is elegant but extravagantly expensive. Why not upholster panels of plywood or fiberboard with fabric? You can hang them on walls for an attractive and stylish alternative. Adding fabric to walls and floors also helps dampen sound in a room full of hard surfaces.

Decorating with fabric wall panels is a charming way to liven up kids’ rooms. You can recover them with new patterns in a jiffy when kids get tired of one design and want to upgrade to a new one.

Pulling fabric over wooden stretcher bars or a stretched canvas and displaying it as if it were a painting can be very effective. This is best done with a fabric that doesn’t have a pattern with obvious straight lines, which are harder to line up evenly over stretchers.

Headboards & Upholstered Wall Panels

If you’re up for a bigger project, cover a wall in upholstered fabric panels for a cool custom look. Upholstered panels can help to soundproof a room used for gaming, music-making, or movie-watching. Upholstered panels work well as headboards above beds as well. Cover a single large panel, or create a feature wall with a number of panels in various colors and sizes.

Cushioned headboards provide comfort for those who like to read or watch TV from bed. If you have a special fabric you’d like to use, you can make your own headboard. You can also have one custom-upholstered to match other fabric elements in your room. You might buy an upholstered headboards, but you can also create your own headboard using peel-and-stick panels upholstered in fabric, vinyl, or leather.

Other Ways to Decorate with Fabric

• During the 17th century, prosperous Dutch families were proud of their Turkish carpets. They draped them over tables and featured them in paintings. Fine antique carpets make beautiful wall hangings. They still look great draped over chests or tables, too.

• Looking for outdoor decor? Cover piece of plywood or an old stretched canvas with a length of outdoor fabric. Hang it on a fence, outdoor patio wall, or trellis.

• For easy outdoor drama, hang fabrics around your patio, deck, or balcony. Drape lengths of patterned fabric over your clothesline, chair backs, your dining table, even over fences. Try scarves, shawls, table runners, sari fabric, pretty throws, tablecloths, or any length of attractive fabric. Follow a color scheme, or go wild. It only takes a few minutes, and it brings a whole new feeling to an outdoor space.

• When I find a fabric pattern that I love, I make table linens with it. I love to mix and match fabrics for my placemats, napkins, and runners. I’m particularly fond of mixing wild fabrics designed by Kaffe Fassett with an assortment of colorful dishes and fresh flowers.

• Fabric-backed cabinetry offers a chic custom look that lightens up a large bank of plain shelving.

• A lovely way to reuse bits of favorite fabrics is to create fabric pennant banners. These are charming for special events or holidays, and they make cute children’s room decor.

When you decorate with fabric, you can add individuality, warmth, and style to any room. Bring color and texture, improve acoustics, or make a minimalist or boxy space feel friendlier. The possibilities are endless.

More About Caring for & Decorating with Textiles

To learn more about caring for textiles or decorating with them, see my other articles on textile arts:

• Caring for Textile Arts
• Decorating with Quilts and Patchwork
• Decorating with Needlework
• Decorating with Lace and Macrame
• Caring for Batik and Other Deeply Dyed Fabrics

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Bring the world to your back yard via pretty international fabrics | Taryn Elliott for Pexels