This life chapter is about me and my business

HAND-BLOCK TEXTILE PRINTER, SPERONELLA MARSH

- KERRYN HARPER-CUSS

Business success relies on meeting a need – and for Speronella Marsh, that need was affordable curtains for her home! Realising the best way to get what she wanted was to make them herself led to her discovery of hand-block printing. That, in turn, prompted a life shift, as she launched her artisanal printing studio to bring her designs to others. Today, Hare’s Tail Printing draws on her Italian heritage, her passion for vintage linens, and her love of English gardens and rural life, and is admired equally by interior designers and private clients.

From her workshop in rural Shropshire, Speronella prints nature-inspired patterns onto vintage sheets, which are then used for bespoke curtaining, upholstery and tablecloths. Her joy in English gardens shows in the motifs, and her love of timeworn buildings is echoed in the colours and print technique. ‘Having grown up in Rome I’m definitely influenced by the “washed out” hues of the buildings, which haven’t been painted for 100 years or more. I love that imperfection,’ she says. ‘Using large print blocks means my patterns are never uniform and have an uneven application of colour. But even though each sheet is unique, if you use 10 in the same design they work wonderfully together; the patterns flow without flatness. Printing on vintage linen enhances the effect and because the sheets have been washed a thousand times, the cloth has a feel of movement, too.’

Speronella has collected vintage linens for decades. ‘The comfortable, luxurious feel of textiles – especially curtaining – is very much an English thing and is something I appreciate because I didn’t experience it as a child. Italians have shutters and a much more outdoor way of life,’ she explains.