A long time ago I was shown photos of a quilt made in India, sold for a shocking price by a well known interiors shop, and asked if I could make something like it but unique to the client. Of course I snapped up the commission and I’ve been working on it on and off ever since.

I’ve never had such bad luck with a project.

We bought this beautiful hand printed linen for the back and I sourced lots of indigo prints online. As always I washed all the fabrics first to make sure they were then colour fast and had done all their shrinking.

I decided to hand quilt it, using a thick cotton bedspread as wadding as this have the quilt a heavy bed spread like quality.

After working on it for many hours I realised I didn’t like what I using instead if wadding. It was heavy but not comfy, bulky but not lofty. But I had put so much time in it ready. I carried on stitching.

It needed washing after one of my cats used it for curling up on so without a thought I bunged it in the machine on a cool short wash. All the fabric had been pre washed so I did not expect what was about to happen. Something blue ran so badly all the gorgeous linen and all the white in the patterned fabric was patchy blue. I almost cried. Instead though I decided it was a sign to start again. I ripped ALL the stitches out, months of work. I separated the front and back and took out the offending middle. I washed all pieces in colour run remover twice to remove most of the blue wash.

Then I started again with a gorgeous cotton wadding.

This time everything went according to plan. It still took a few months to hand quilt but I was so chuffed when it was done. It looked gorgeous. One last gentle wash cycle and then it could be handed over. No. Way. What happened here? I took the quilt out of the machine only to find it covered in tons of white “bobbles” like some cheap polycotton duvet cover. No. Way. Turns out the expensive cotton wadding had worked it’s way out through the quilt top. Many mang tedious hours of removing most by hand later and I was SO ready to send that quilt off to it’s new home! I love you but I cannot live with you. Sorry quilt. Off you go.