The Story
A headboard,
at twenty millimetres
The reference is unapologetically domestic: the tufted silk headboard of a Milanese hotel room, photographed at seven in the morning because the light was doing something to the peach that nobody could describe later. Quilting is a grid that has been softened by what is underneath it — and that is very difficult to draw on a flat surface.
The solution was to shade before ruling. Each diamond is subtly deepened at its corners while the base is wet, so when the white lines are drawn over the cured surface the eye reads a swell between them. Pearls are then bedded at the crossings, exactly like buttons, and a few hearts are drawn into the quilting where the pattern would otherwise repeat.
A grid, softened by whatever is underneath — that is quilting.



