Heartiness Riviera size 6

In high school I made a quilt. I had a definite aesthetic in mind (blues, greens and purples), and the lady in the quilt shop kept either misinterpreting what my wishes were or pushing me to create something more trendy. “So you want a groovy chick quilt?” she would ask. Too timid to say, “Au contraire,” I would pick out a fabric I liked, hoping she’d get a clue, but she kept repeating the phrase as we picked out fat quarters. The words “groovy chick quilt” are permanently etched in my mind, and not in a good way. Perhaps she thought the color scheme I had chosen would fade in popularity and all the work I had put into the quilt would be for naught.

What the quilt lady didn’t know was that 1. It would take me nearly ten years to finish the quilt. I’m just not that crafty. 2. Fifteen years later I would snap a picture of said quilt and embark on a quest to find a wrap that reminded me of it.

Heartiness Riviera is that wrap. My first handwoven, I spent days chatting back and forth with the seller, being a general pain and ill-informed buyer. I’m sure she was beyond relief when I finally sent her my paypal address.

The wrap was a bit different than I’d expected; very dry in hand, blankety and thick, with a high amount of texture and grip. But the weave was what really caught my eye; this Hearti has a definite right and wrong side, with a pronounced twill pattern on one side and a smoother-looking weave on the other.

Riviera has proven to be the perfect fall and winter snuggle wrap; whether at the pumpkin patch or around our own yard, it’s cozy and warm without being beastly hot. The support this wrap contains is endless; I could ruck my tall 3.5 year old boy easily, and it is wide enough for him to pretend to be a turtle on my back! In fact, this is the first wrap he allowed me to take him up in, as I didn’t wrap him past “Moby stage.”

The weaving is flawless, aside from a skipped thread that got the wrap labeled seconds quality. The unhemmed rails are razor straight and without knobs or bumps. And as the seller put it, “I love just looking at the weave and see how the colors play together.”

I wouldn’t recommend this wrap for a squish or for a new wrapper, as the grip, thickness and width makes it almost prohibitively hard to tighten, especially for fancy finishes. On the other hand, the grip makes it possible to stay in place with just a half-knot. But overall, it is rock solid, while still being snuggly and soft for my older baby and preschooler! Maybe someday I’ll make a quilt out of it.