Quilts for VanEssa

I know, I know, it’s been quiet round here.

I’ve had a lot of vertigo. It’s… unpleasant. I’ve been busy, but haven’t been doing anything worth showing. Lots of hand-stitching on the Delft quilt (two and a half sides stitched down onto the border with teeny weeny hemstitches). Lots of long-overdue tidying up that I can just put down quickly if I start to feel weird. Mending. Loading stuff into VanEssa and finding homes for everything.

Anyhow, today I felt OK, so I thought it was time to start something new. And that something is the bunk quilts for VanEssa. First I had to separate the existing quilt blocks into his’n’hers.

Hers are the loud, vivid, fancy blocks. Well, you didn’t really expect anything else, did you?

His are the simpler, plainer, less vivid blocks. Calm, pale, formal, but still colourful. And the eagle-eyed will notice that this quilt is a extra row taller. Because the Husband is a head taller than me, so he needs the extra cover 😊

As there were only 30 blocks originally, I needed fillers to make reasonably-sized quilts for the two bunks. So I used a really pretty Jocelyn Proust ‘fruit dove’ print which picks out some of the colours already in the blocks.

For the backing, I’m going to use an old cotton doona (duvet for non-Aussies) cover, in the Natalie Engdahl Sunset Frangipani print. It’s huge, splashy, colourful and fun. And I don’t use it any more (not big enough for our bed), so it’s an excellent use for it. It won’t be too eye-searing as a backing for the quilt, but it will be a flash of unexpected colour if the quilt top gets folded over.

I’m going to keep the quilting simple and supple, so probably cross-hatching. Now I have to do some more cutting and decide whether to use a quiet warm grey or a bright greeny-yellow for the sashing. Or maybe both: his and hers.

That’s a job for tomorrow.