Baker Lifestyle | Block Trellis

Block Trellis is a printed cotton and linen from Baker Lifestyle's Block Party collection, and it carries the slightly uneven edge of a hand-blocked print rather than a machine-crisp one. The trellis runs as a tight lattice, 15 centimetres top to bottom and 13 across, so from a few feet away it reads as an all-over texture and only resolves into a grid close to. The linen content gives the cloth a dry, papery handle with a little body, and the ground takes colour unevenly in the way printed linen should.

It is 59 per cent cotton and 41 per cent linen, woven 134 centimetres wide, with a 15 centimetre vertical and 13 centimetre horizontal repeat. Baker Lifestyle rate it for curtains, loose and fixed upholstery and bedspreads; there is no published Martindale figure for this one, which is usual for the printed cloths in Block Party. It comes in a single colourway, Rustic Red, a warm brick tone rather than a pillar-box one, and it sits well against oak, terracotta and old plaster.

We tend to use it for full-length curtains in a snug or a back sitting room, where a small repeat does not fight the furniture. It also works on a slip-covered armchair or a pair of ottomans, and it makes an honest Roman blind in a kitchen window. Pair it with a plain natural linen and one heavier woven check, so the trellis has something quiet to sit against. Sold by the half metre; order a sample to see it in your own light.

The repeat is small enough that pattern matching costs you very little: allow one extra repeat per drop and you will have enough to square the lattice across a pair of curtains. Ask your maker to cut the trellis vertically true rather than following the selvedge if the print has drifted, which it can do on a blocked cloth, and interline anything full length so the print does not shadow through.

• Composition: 59% cotton, 41% linen
• Width: 134 cm (53 in)
• Pattern repeat: 15 cm vertical, 13 cm horizontal
• Care: Professional dry clean only; do not wash, bleach or iron
• Collection: Block Party, Baker Lifestyle
• Colourways: 1 (Rustic Red)