High Tea

 

You may recognize this quilt setting. It's the Trellis Setting by Sharyn Craig  that I also used for Where the Charming Roses Bloom, only in that case it was a square version and this is a rectangle version.  I bought this one as a quilt kit from my local quilt shop. While the fabric is beautiful, I likely would have switched a couple of things up a bit. First of all, I'm not entirely sure that I like that cream coloured fabric for the setting triangles. I think it's too great a contrast with the mostly black background fabrics in the rest of the quilt. Even if it had the little rosebuds on it like the black sashing and the blue framing fabrics, it likely would have been more satisfactory. But this is just a tonal, with a print so indistinct that I had to be very careful to make sure I wasn't sewing it with the wrong side out. The next thing is the same focus fabric is used for both the large and small squares and this is a really large print, with the result that the smaller squares have bits and pieces of teapots. It really doesn't suit the smaller squares. I did use the same focus fabric for both large and small squares in the Charming Roses quilt, but it was a smaller scale print, so it worked much better. Finally, there's the matter of the framing and sashing fabrics. 

In the charming roses quilt, both the sashing and framing fabrics have a totally different background colour from the focus fabric. This worked well when putting the framing around the small squares, where it was only put on two sides of the square. 

And it's supposed to go on the outsides of the small squares. But in High Tea, because the background colour of both the focus fabric and the sashing is black, there wouldn't be a strong enough demarcation between the two fabrics. 

And so I put the framing fabric on the inside. It doesn't give it the same finished look, and, if I had enough of the blue framing fabric, I might have considered framing the small squares all the way around. 

I googled this fabric line. It's several years old, so not much can be found online. However, I did find this fabric, which is the same print as the fabric used in the wider border, only with an ivory background. 

Perhaps I could have used this for the sashing, changed the focus fabric for the smaller squares to the black rosebud fabric that is used in my quilt for the sashing, and changed the setting triangles to the same fabric as that used in the wider border. I think that would have been more aesthetically pleasing, though I still think it's a beautiful quilt. 
I used the Coffee Break pantograph from Urban Elementz. It's coffee (or tea) cups with swirls of steam rising from the cups. And this is the backing fabric I used. 

It's a totally different fabric line, but I felt it suited this quilt. I did have a hard time parting with it, however, as it's so beautiful 

Originally, I purchased this quilt kit for my oldest sister, who collects vintage tea pots. However, when my youngest sister wanted a bed-sized quilt, I knew that I would have to make all of my sisters bed-sized quilts. And this one is defintely not bed-sized. However, I was hoping to make a quilt for a friend who is a ceramicist (potter) and I felt that teapots and cups would be appropriate for her.