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Birds unleased Nicola Stairmand's creativity. The former interior designer and heritage consultant credits the hundreds of little fairy wrens and finches which populate her Yarra Valley property with kick-starting her career and subsequent label, Fat Bird Farm.
"There are a lot of birds here. All the birds I draw live in our garden," says Nicola.
The handmade Fat Bird Farm range, which includes cushions, table runners, scarves, tea-towels, aprons, little bags and gift cards, combines Nicola's original illustrations – of birds, needless to say – with vintage wallpapers, natural fabrics, knits, trims, buttons and stitching.
"I went to art college when I left school, but this is the most I have ever drawn and created," says Nicola, who moved to Healesville in Victoria’s Yarra Valley from Brisbane with her husband and two daughters in 2006.
"I feel more creative here than I did in Brisbane. I don't have the intellectual stimulation that I had there [working in heritage conservation], and I have fewer friends. [But] there's also less heat so I have more energy – I could not have sat and drawn and sewn and cut out fabric in all that heat," she says.
Nor, perhaps, would she have knitted. Who wants to knit in 35-degree heat? Scarves would have been the last thing on her mind. Now, in frosty Victoria, Nicola knits panels and incorporates them into her stunning deep red, olive green or mud brown scarves combined with ticking, florals or plain linen with a bird print. "I do like putting fabrics together and applying patterns with patterns. I’m in the process of making up more scarves, they’ve been popular," she says.
Nicola, 43, isn't sure why, but she just loves birds – not just any bird, you understand. Kookaburras are regulars on trees around her home, but the big, laughing bush birds don't hold her attention, artistically-speaking. Nicola's love is for little birds – wrens and finches, in particular. They are what she sees when she looks out the windows of her home.
"We get lots of tiny little finches with tiny orange heads. They are always busy, and the little ones jump and flit all over the place. We also get a lot of Kookaburras in particular trees,” she says.
“If you live outside the city, which is full of other noises, you become more aware of birdsong ... you can waste a lot of time looking at birds in your back garden, and I take a lot of photos of them too.
"Sometimes I think, I can't do birds forever, but I'll have to. It's what inspires me. I have tried flowers and fruits but it's not the same."
And besides, people love her designs. "I've noticed that people come up to look at a product and they'll fall in love with it. People have a soft spot for birds," she says.
Even Nicola's choice of fabrics in her products is, in part, dictated by the bird in the overall design. "Occasionally, I do like to use vintage fabrics – big blowsy flowers – and I like ticking and things that have a traditional look, I guess because of the heritage conservation side of me, but I have to be careful the pattern doesn't overwhelm the birds. I play around with patterns until it looks right, but there is a hierarchy and the bird is at the top, it's the most important part of the design.”
Nicola draws extra inspiration from her collection of late 19th Century and early 20th Century wallpapers, linoleum and fabrics, and her work as a heritage consultant. While she has begun to do some heritage consultation for historic properties in the Yarra Valley, she is determined to stay focused on the Fat Bird Farm range, and even expand it.
"I want to push it further but I don't want to get too big. I don't want to look at mass-producing and getting things made in China – the fun goes out of it. I want to get more creative and do more hand-finished, one-off, beautiful things," says Nicola.
Nicola said she enjoyed leaving her personal mark on all items she made, and only occasionally had to “churn out” large orders. “Everything I do now is one-off – the printing, the sewing and the embroidery. I try to stick to the same size for panels but each one is different, I think that's part of the charm," she says.
Nicola admits she doesn't have any of her own products in her home except for a bird cushion in each of her daughter's bedrooms. Not an apron, not a scarf, not even a tea-towel.
"I make them, so I have a different view of them. I love looking at my things but only in my workroom. If I had things in the house I’d have to admit to people that I made them,” Nicola says.
While she mightn’t yet be comfortable to shout Fat Bird Farm from the rooftops, her creations are certainly resonating with her customers. "I had an elderly woman contact me who had been given one of my cream linen bird table runners. She told me the bird reminded her of times with her late husband, sitting at Flinders watching the fairy wrens. So really nice things do come out of it."
By Carolyn Ford
