Cubist curtains supplied by Heals and likely inspired by Omega (215/180 x 120cm) [2]

Furnishing fabrics were one of the most successful products produced by the Omega Workshops . Six linens were designed by Roger Fry, Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant and Frederick Etchells were hand block printed in France by Besselievre, at the Maromme Print Works Company, Rouen. The Company had a London office at 6 Snow Hill which is where Fry would have placed orders. Fry in a letter of May 1913, reported that the French firm that's doing them are full of enthusiasm and are altering all their processes to get rid of the mechanical and return to older, simpler methods. These were prints were done on linen without reference as yet to woollen woven products although the similarity in design is very apparent . Perhaps it was the obscure and arduous practice that might have made for a short lived expensive studio product as is made clear by the technical notes by HGT.

The workshop's textiles, like the designs named 'Margery' and 'Maud', were created by artists associated with the Bloomsbury Group and were known for their bold, abstract patterns.

This collaboration with French printers was part of Fry's effort to create art in a more modern style, drawing inspiration from both fine art and other European decorative arts workshops.

Post WWI the Mansard Gallery on the top floor of the Heals buiding was a gathering place for Bloomsbury Group who were regular visitors as the gallery quickly became a meeting place for London's avant garde . The Friday Group regularly put on shows at the Gallery , hosting their final exhibition in 1922

Analysis as to technique courtesy Hero Granger-Taylor
The key is that the weft is all chenille yarn and chenille yarn is made from a pre-woven fabric which after weaving is cut up into very narrow strips in the warp direction and where, after cutting, what had been the warp direction becomes weft yarn in a new fabric - chenille yarn itself is apparently a French invention of the 18^th century. The weave of the curtains is a broken 2:2 twill, made with only one warp and one weft, and where the colour in the weft is exactly the same on both sides but where the colour does not extend over the warp threads which are always the same beige colour. (The twill weave and the absence of a second warp or weft means that the fabric is very flexible, and 2:2 twills by their nature are good insulators.) I am deducing from these features that the loosely-woven preceding fabric - from which the chenille yarn derives - was printed before it was cut up and that the dyes used in the printing penetrating the fabric well so that there was no obvious front and back. But weaving the resulting chenille yarn would still have been quite difficult, because, as in a weft-ikat, it was important that the pre-printed design lined up exactly. I note that the selvedges are all hidden on the made-up curtains - if we unpicked the seams (not advised) I think we would find a series of loops along the selvedges where the weaver adjusted the weft by hand so that it design lined up exactly. Each curtain is one and half widths wide and the width of the fabric, without selvedges visible, is approximately 109 cm (43") suggesting 45" as woven, an old width for European textiles of wool (and incidentally an English ell, though I am sure this textile was not made England). As to the design, I could not find anything online very close in textile form but here is a good parallel in a later wallpaper in the Cooper Hewitt collection