The Sad Tale of the Liberty Quilt (With a Happy Ending).

For Little M's second birthday in April 2013, Michael and I gave her a big girl's bed. I wanted to sew her a quilt for it. A Liberty quilt. What can I say? I see Liberty as 'Celebration Fabric'. My girl was graduating into the big world of beds and I thought a Liberty quilt would be just the ticket.

I ordered my Liberty from Shaukat, and made a simple square quilt top with coordinating quilt bottom. I decided to get it machine-quilted by a professional as a single bed quilt is huge. I love hand-sewing, but not that much, and not through that many layers of fabric.

So I went to Amitie Textiles in Gardenvale and bought the wadding and asked them to send it to be quilted with one of their quilters. The chose to send it to a woman called Cheryl CA Quilter. All was apparently going well, but was taking a long time. I rang a few times and it finally was ready to be picked up, ready for me to bind. I went and picked it up and it had been quilted on the wrong side (the quilt bottom had been quilted as the top). I was somewhat distraught, Amitie rang Cheryl CA Quilter and arranged for it to be sent back to her to be fixed. After two weeks I went in to Amitie to pick it up, and the quilt had holes all over it where Cheryl CA Quilter had unpicked the original quilting. I was just a teeny bit upset. Amitie again rang Cheryl, and I also spoke to her and she suggested sending the quilt back to her to be washed in some sort of special quilt wash that would remove the holes.

About a week later, Cheryl CA Quilter texted me for my address to send me the quilt (I thought to save me the trip of going to Gardenvale again). The quilt came in the mail, and yep, she washed it, but she'd also unpicked it again. Meaning there were TWO SETS OF HOLES on the LIBERTY QUILT (sorry for the capitalisation there). The quilt was unpicked and in three pieces. She'd also included a cheque for her fee (she was refunding me her fee).

Well, I was furious. I rang Amitie, asked them to assist in resolving it, they told me it was between me and Cheryl CA Quilter. How extremely unfair and unhelpful. So I rang Cheryl CA Quilter who told me to wash the quilt and see if the holes would come out. If they didn't, she said she would pay for the Liberty fabric (not my time putting the thing together, but the fabric). I did as she asked, the holes didn't come out. I tried again. I tried steam ironing it. Nothing worked. I rang Cheryl CA Quilter and asked her to pay me for 7m of Liberty (and I was very polite) and she told me she couldn't talk to me, she was busy.

Queue many tears from me. I shoved the quilt pieces in a storage box and tried to forget about it. Until one day I saw that ruined Liberty quilt while tidying and had a brain wave. I would ask Michael to help me make Little M an A-Frame Tent with the Liberty quilt. Here is what we came up with:

We've been having 43 degree days here this week. I came home Monday arvo and found them playing in it with the air conditioning on full blast.

Pretty cute. So that is my story of the Liberty Quilt. And I guess it is my review of Amitie Textiles and Cheryl CA Quilter. I'm glad we got a cute tent out of it, but it was a pretty expensive tent!!