#violet craft

A while ago I made a baby quilt which a neighbour of mine snapped up for her little baby grandson; on the back is the most glorious print from a designer called Violet Craft, who designs for MIchael Miller fabrics. My neighbour has a daughter in her twenties, and was smitten by the print from the moment she saw it, and asked if I would make a wholecloth quilt from it for her daughter. Her daughter seemingly just adores elephants and my neighbour is convinced she is going to be absolutely thrilled with this print.

And here it is:

Isn't it the most beautiful fabric? It's called Parade Day in Grey from the collection "peacock Lane" by Violet Craft for Michael Miller fabrics.  It reminds me of celebrations, of fireworks. Of hot, dark nights in far-off lands. Of adventure, of the world being a wondrous place full of mysteries and laughter. My only regret is that I didn't notice this collection until it was almost out of print, and this is the only fabric I got. I love the collection as a whole and its bright sorbet colours remind me of the summer days we rarely get in scotland!

So I wasn't sure about this brief; firstly a wholecloth quilt the top made from one piece of fabric) seems... well, cheating, doesn't it? Although you can't slice into this incredible scene either, so it's not like I had any other solutions! Secondly, Catriona is in her 20s, and I was worried it would be too childish for her. Apparently she has a charcoal grey sofa and this will go well whilst providing the colour the room might need, so my neighbour was unconcerned, but I wasn't. Still I made it, and you know what? I love it. I really do.

It's about 55" x 55". In order to make it wide enough, I used 5.5" sashing of Kona charcoal, with a 3 inch border along the top. The charcoal was a good match to the background dark grey, which although nearly black it has little white lines on it, which adds a kind of "drawing" feel to it, and gives the print texture and movement, so dark grey was perfect.

In order to reconcile myself with giving this to a grown woman, I decided on a more grown up but still fun backing. I love this numbers in words 100% cotton print from IKEA. The words are in deep grey, which is perfect, and it works reallly well with the front. It's a grey day in Scotland today with no bright red elephants and trees bursting with colour to cheer it up here, so apologies for the dark pictures!

Catriona lives in norway, so I wanted to make this as warm as possible. I almost went with wool batting, but the potential difficulty in washing it put me off. Cotton is the coolest, and I try not to quilt in polyester in case it might end up over a sleeping child. I tried for the first time Quilter's Dream Orient - a blend of silk, tencel (eucalyptus!) bamboo and cotton, which supposedly combines the best of these natural fibres and although not as warm as wool, it supposedly isn't far off. I really liked it, easy to quilt, no issues, nice drape and softness afterwards, machine washable. Apparently it won't shrink, so maybe go with cotton if you want the antique crinkly effect after washing.

The biggest issue I had and I've still not resolved in my mind is the quilting thread. I went with white as you can see, and it's not too dense a stipple (although I seem to be out of practice!) to avoid breaking up the design too much. White works for the fabric itself which does have those little white lines on it anyway, but of course it doesn't really work for the solid grey borders, where it all shows up, quilting mistakes and all. I didn't really want to muddy the bright colours of the print by using grey thread, which would also have changed the back. The only thing I could have done was use a variegated coloured thread, although I was worried about making a mess of stringy colour all over the front. So in the end, white it is. Now the quilt is finished, I think it looks good as a whole, but I'm still trying to work out if I should have quilted it differently!

I am very happy with the binding though - this is a stripe I got from my local fabric shop, "Fabrication" in Haddington. I am pretty sure it's from the Makower company from a collection called "space" - rockets and aliens for little boys. Laura, the lovely owner, had this on end-of-bolt offer, and I took all she had - it's such a versatile print - stripe, boyish enough for boys, multicoloured enough to match most projects and despite that, not too "primary colour" to be used for adult projects. Perfect. And stripy bindings - well. Yummy. Calorie-free yummy.

Finally, a label with mum + dad's choice of message, and it's off to its new owner for Christmas! 

Hurrah. I hope she likes it. And hope your Christmas shopping, baking, sewing, crafting, playing or denial is all going swimmingly!

Till the next time,