...in Nico's bedroom, which is by a window overlooking the backyard and is perfectly sized to slide a twin bed into, is one of my favourite corners in our house; it actually isn't original to the house and happily came about when we renovated the top floor of our house several years ago. Nico's minty blue bed was a second-hand purchase which looked rather shabby (definitely not chic!) when first bought as it was covered by a wooden veneer which was chipping all over the place. However, my friend, who owned a lovely furnishing and furniture shop at the time and who is such a whizz at giving tired old furniture that beautiful subtlely distressed painted look, did just that with this bed and, once done, we gifted it to Nico for her 10th birthday a couple of years ago... (Come to think of it, I must take some closeup shots of the bed to show you what a beautiful job she did!)
So, given that this is a sweet little nook with a sweet little bed in Nico's room and that Nico will be the recipient of at least one of my patchwork coverlets (here and here), what better to place to take some photos of the coverlets?! I went ahead one afternoon last week when the sun was, very shyly, poking its head through the clouds and took nearly a zillion photos of one of the coverlets which then took me what seemed like a zillion hours to go through and edit! Anyhow, this post shows the fruits of my labour and, brace yourself, 'cause it's all about the coverlet from every possible angle!...
I decided to do something a bit different for the backing than the cotton chenille I've used in the past... I thought it would be nice to simply back the top with some sort of fabric that would be wide enough to work with the 56" wide patchwork top without having to be pieced. Easier said than done, as it took me quite a lot of searching in my local fabric shops to come across something that I thought would work! (At times like this, I get so frustrated at what I think is such a lack of selection in our Vancouver fabric shops...)
In fact, I was getting quite desperate in my search and was just about ready to turn to online fabric shops when I happened on a lovely blush pink fabric with a textured herringbone-like weave; it has somewhat of a woolly appearance and feel to it, although I'm not even sure whether it actually has any wool in it as it was marked as being made of unknown fibers. Anyhow, the width, weight and look of it felt right, so I grabbed a bunch of yardage and I'm happy I did because I'm quite pleased with the way it complements the patchwork top.
So, with this fabric (of unknown fibers) as a backing as well as the cotton batting which is sandwiched between the top and the backing, the finished coverlet has a lovely weight to it, perfect to snuggle under!...
As you can see, I also decided to tie the quilt instead of machine stitching all the layers together; I wanted a very simple and homespun look for both coverlets and I figured that tying the layers as well as not binding the edges would definitely help in creating such a look... What do you think?
I had a lot of fun playing around with all sorts of coloured cotton yarn to figure out which one to use for the ties... (Whenever there are colour choices to be made, I always have fun!)
I finally settled on a pretty salmon-coloured yarn which I think works nicely with the patchwork top as well as the backing. When choosing the tie colour, I strive to find a colour that works well with the top and bottom of the quilt, but isn't a perfect match for any of the dominant colours in the fabrics, nor a colour that would stand out too much and take away all the attention from the fabrics... Hmmm, a bit of a fine line, but so satisfying when you find just the right colour!
I have to admit that I love the photo above because all these colours jumbled together have a way of putting a very big smile on my face... And, coming up with a colour combo that makes me so very happy using odds and ends of fabric is one of the big reasons why I absolutely love making patchworks! Ah, here's to the simple pleasures in life...
Now, I hope that I haven't overdone the coverlet photos in this post but, as I said earlier, I took so many and had such a hard time choosing which to include in this post that I decided to stop trying to choose and just stick a bunch in! Earlier today, I took a batch of photos of the other coverlet I made (again, way too many!) which I will look through in the next few days and then share with you in my next post. So, stay tuned for more patchwork love...
Some of you have been wondering when I will be listing more pillowcases in my Etsy shop because I haven't done so in a little while... Well, the reason for my rather sad shop is that I've had very annoying tension issues with my sewing machine lately (Ugh!)... Happily though, a trip to my local Pfaff dealer seems to have sorted these out and I hope to be filling my shop with some new pillowcases shortly. I hope you've enjoyed this post (despite all its photos of the same thing!); I've certainly been enjoying reading all your lovely comments lately... Thank you so much for taking the time to comment so kindly and, of course, for taking the time to pop by!
