The one thing I was determined to do over Christmas/before M-P2 arrives was design a new quilt for throwing over our sofa. Bella often drags her quilt downstairs and I have to admit that we've often been tempted to claim it as our own because the sofa looks so much nicer under it. Of course that wouldn't really be an option since Bella seems to think that because I made it for her it must actually be hers. Strange.
So during Christmas week I got cutting and piecing and came up with this.
I am reliably informed by this months Living Etc that chartreuse is the colour of the moment, which isn't exactly a shock to me since limey/green has been playing on my mind for a while now. And of course I'm not the only one .
So when I started choosing the fabrics for this quilt it was obvious that green was going to be playing a larger part than normal in the colour scheme. ( I don't think I've ever made a green quilt?)
And of course, with Christmas's red and green combo still playing in my mind, and the fact that I already have a small red quilt in the front room, it was a no brainer to go with red as the contrasting colour. Which then led to gray as well, because a two tone quilt just would have been dull.
And the blue? Well that was a last minute addition to stop the whole thing looking a little sludgy.
I've used a couple of Amy Butler prints (the greens), a Denyse Schmidt (my favourite grey print) my favourite Kaffe Fassett print (the red floral), a red gingham that I just bought a ton of on sale at Reprodepot because it's a great basic to have, and a Japanese print that I got on my trip to Purl last year (the gray floral).
The blue is part of Alexander Henry's Storybook range and the last red was another sale bargain from Repro and has been used for the binding too.
For the backing I used a vintage floral print that I have a good few meters of. It's a slightly heavier cotton, so it should not only withstand being thrown around by Bella, but also muddied by the cat, sicked on by the baby and sat on by me. Hopefully.
I gave the backing piece a couple of good hot washes in the washing machine and then tumble dried it on high before actually using it, so that it really was well pre-shrunk and was nice and soft.
I also washed the quilt top on it's own before basting and quilting it, because some of the fabric had been pre-washed and some hadn't and I just didn't want any nasty surprises with colour runs or shrinkage and it didn't occur to me until I had already pieced the top. Duh.
Once both back and front had been washed and dried I quilted it in straight lines. The quilting itself is a lot heavier than I normally do, which isn't saying much, because I have to admit to being a lazy quilter and often doing the bare minimum. But this time the whole quilt is quilted vertically and horizontally and looks and feels much nicer for it.
I was determined to have it finished before the tree came down, so that it would counteract the awful drabness that you feel when the decorations have all disappeared and everything suddenly looks old and tired. And I'm pleased to say that I managed it with a day to spare and that it did make all the difference.
I'm also really pleased with how it looks under my three favourite Ashley prints. In fact once I put it on the sofa I realised just how much the colour combinations in the three prints had influenced me.
The best thing about the quilt though is that when Bella came home from nursery and saw it, she said "I like that, it's Mummy's work". And that is all the praise I could ever ask for.
