THE SPIDER, 2 DRAGONFLIES AND A BIRD

I have long held a great distaste for most baby and childrens bed linen. I can't really stand the cutesy factor of Winnie The Pooh, or the pastel sea of cartoon character type illustrations. I've always longed for something more graphic, more detailed, more sophisticated. Ikea actually do some really great graphic prints, and Max has a number of simple sets from there in bold colours. Try finding something which isn't a) expensive, and b) sugary pink for a girl though, and I've run into some problems. So when the Etsuko Furuya range leapt out at me via Print and Pattern many months ago, I went into full on lust mode for these great prints. You may have noticed me mention them once or twice recently........

The prints are large scale. The pattern I've used here runs from selvedge to selvedge, and needs to be read over a large area. It's the Spider and Dragonfly pattern - nestled with leaf patterns top and bottom and the odd bird rummaging around in the undergrowth. To give you an idea of scale, the spider repeats every 60cm. I've used 1 yard (I bought the spider fabric in the US before I knew I could get it in Australia) of the Spider, and then done a back piece in a purple and duck egg blue dot pattern from the same range. I used 1 metre of the back fabric, and used the extra left over to make a buttonhole turn on the backside. I've very simply sewn up a sack which buttons at the bottom - during the spring and summer months it is weighty enough to be used as is, like a bed spread, and during the cooler months and when baby is older, a lightweight quilt can be inserted making it a quilt/doona/duvet cover.

And this goes beautifully with the two Kaishu stools I have for Petite 6.5st - a great mix of patterns. At some point I will also make some cushions for the chair in the alcove, which are from the same range, but with different patterns.

But for now, I think, my work is done. I can relax a little more, and go have that caramel brownie. We're ready little one - you can come out now.

Comments

[Jane]

Beautiful, clever, stylish. How great for Petite 6.5st who will be surrounded by such lovely textiles.

[melanie]

Blu and Scarlet are going to be totally jealous when they see this and look at me like "WTF, ma - why do we get these plain boring ass crib sheets when THERE ARE SPIDERS AND DRAGONFLIES AND POLKADOTS!?"

:)

Awesome!!