Something to think about when gifting.
Whenever I have made a quilt as a gift for someone I have always been mindful of their favoured/preferred colours, size required and their preferences of styles so I can make a quilt that they will really like and use. So, when I decided to make a table runner for my sister I made the same considerations...I asked her about her colour preferences, asked her to send me a photo of her dining table and asked her what style she would like.
I was really pleased with the table runner I made for her....I was able to "fit the brief" perfectly so it was with great excitement and a sense of real accomplishment that i drove down to visit her today and present her with her gift. I gave it to her...she unwrapped it...and loved it......and I was thrilled....until.......
Until we put it on her table. Oh no! The one thing I hadn't considered was that her table is in a very well lit room with large floor to ceiling windows that let in floods of light during the afternoon. So much light in fact that the beautiful dark feature colours of the table runner are completely washed out to a rather dull, nondescript wash. I don't think my sister noticed as she hadn't seen the colours in any other light to compare, or she was too polite to comment on the blandness of it.
I know she will love it as it is a gift from me and there is nothing I can do about it now anyway but I do know that from now on, every time I make a gift for someone I am going to include in my considerations "where" the gift is going to be used and what sort of light aspect is there. My daughter wants me to make her an identical table runner and you can be sure that this time I will be taking some samples of my fabric choices to her house and seeing how they "look" in her "lighting" before making my final choices.
I wonder if anyone else has had similar happen to them?