Woman of the Cloth

When she was 7 years old, English interior designer Kathryn Ireland won a school prize for a patchwork quilt she made by hand. “It had hexagonal shapes and lots of bits and pieces on a dark purple backing the color of my school uniform,” Ireland recalls. Now, three decades later, the faded beauty of an 18th century English quilt has inspired her first fabric collection, “Chateau Ireland.” Named after a French farmhouse where she vacations with her husband, filmmaker Gary Weis, and their three young sons, the updated traditional collection features six patterns ranging from paisleys and florals to tickings and solids. “The fabrics are meant to be completely interchangeable,” says the designer of the hemp linen, hemp muslin and hemp silk she silk-screens in her Santa Barbara factory. “I wanted people just to be able to mix everything together and have it look great. My style is very homey.” In addition to the fabrics, Ireland’s eponymous store on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica (a new London showroom will debut this spring) features a line of coordinated accessories: hand-painted wood wastepaper baskets, trays and hat racks as well as lampshades, quilts, pillows and table linens. Ireland, whose clientele includes Fran Drescher, Steve Martin and Lady Annabel Goldsmith, is also designing a line of country-inspired furnishings, “a cross between Scandinavian, French and American Shaker,” due out next month.

And after that, “it’s sarongs, shifts and ceramics”--followed by a long summer on the farm, where she plans to dream up next year’s collection. Says Ireland: “I especially like making things that I fancy for myself.”