George & Minnie | Strawberry Tea

Strawberry Tea is the small strawberry print in George & Minnie's Minnie Prints collection, a little fruit-and-leaf motif drawn in one colour and printed on a linen and cotton union cloth. The 14 centimetre repeat keeps it very much a small print, the kind that reads as a texture across a room and reveals its strawberries only when you sit down next to it. It is sweet without being saccharine, which is a harder trick than it sounds.

The cloth is 55 per cent linen and 45 per cent cotton, 137 centimetres wide, with a 14 centimetre vertical and 27.5 centimetre horizontal repeat, and the mill rates it for curtains, loose and fixed upholstery and bedspreads. There are 4 colourways: Aqua, Daffodil, Walnut and Emerald. Aqua and Daffodil are the summery ones; Walnut is softer and more grown-up, and Emerald is the one we would use in a kitchen with painted furniture. There is a matching wallpaper in the Minnie Prints Wallpapers group.

We use Strawberry Tea for kitchen blinds, for a small lined nursing chair, for a bedspread with a wide plain border, or for lining the inside of curtains made in a bigger Volume One print, so the strawberries appear when the curtains are drawn back. It works very happily with a Checkmate gingham in the same colour. Sold by the half metre; order a sample to see it in your own light.

A small print like this is easy to cut and to match, but keep the motif running the same way on every panel. For roman blinds, the 137 centimetre width covers most windows without a join, and a blackout or plain cotton lining behind it stops the light from showing the pattern through. If you are covering a small chair, an extra half metre gives the upholsterer room to centre the strawberries on the seat.

• Composition: 55% linen, 45% cotton
• Width: 137 cm (54 in)
• Pattern repeat: 14 cm vertical, 27.5 cm horizontal
• Suitable for: Curtains, loose and fixed upholstery, bedspreads
• Care: Professional dry clean only; do not wash, bleach or iron
• Collection: Minnie Prints, George & Minnie
• Colourways: 4 (Aqua, Daffodil, Walnut, Emerald)