Courtyard Cheques Shopper Tote

Not every great block print has a centuries-old story behind it. Some of the most interesting cloth coming out of Sanganer right now is the work of printers who looked at their tradition and decided to take it somewhere it had not been before.
The Courtyard Checks is one of these. A bold green and black chequerboard, block-printed onto cotton in a pattern that owes more to confidence than to heritage. The chequerboard is one of the oldest geometric structures in the world, two colours, alternating squares, nothing complicated about it. What is complicated is executing it cleanly at this scale, in this weight of colour, by hand.
A cheque pattern has no motif to carry the eye and no vine to soften an imprecise edge. Every square must be the same size. Every block must land exactly where the last one left off, the green sitting flush against the black without overlap or gap. The printers of Sanganer, trained on patterns that demand exactly this kind of precision, have taken a contemporary design and brought to it everything their tradition knows about making cloth that holds up under close scrutiny.
The green is deep and saturated, the black absolute. Together they create a pattern that reads with the same force from across the street as it does in your hands.
Once printed, the cotton is hand-quilted along vertical channels for structure and a soft padded weight, then bound with a green and black stripe trim along every edge and handle. The same stripe lines the interior, running behind the scalloped pocket that holds the main fabric.
The tote that does not ask permission to be noticed.

Every Courtyard Checks tote is printed and stitched by hand, so no two are quite the same. The chequerboard pattern requires two blocks to register precisely against each other, and you may notice a square that sits a fraction wider, or a colour that bleeds very slightly at an edge. The green may carry a slightly different intensity from piece to piece depending on the dye bath. This is a bold pattern made by an honest process, and the hand behind it is in every square.

• Wipe clean with a damp cloth for daily care
• Machine-wash on a gentle cycle in cool water
• Wash separately the first time, colours may release slightly
• Air-dry away from direct sunlight
• Steam on a low pressure if needed

UK delivery

• Standard delivery — £5.95, free over £60. Royal Mail tracked, 3–5 working days.
• Express delivery — £7.95. Royal Mail tracked, 1–2 working days.
• Order before 2pm Monday–Friday for same-day dispatch. Orders placed after 2pm, or over the weekend, dispatch the next working day.

International delivery

We ship worldwide. Rates and timeframes calculated at checkout based on your destination. Customs duties and import taxes are not included and are the customer's responsibility.

Returns

You have 14 days from receiving your order to return it. Items must be unused, in their original condition and packaging.

For change-of-mind returns, we email you a Royal Mail returns link — no printer needed, no postage to pay upfront. The cost of return postage is deducted from your refund.

For faulty, damaged or incorrect items, we cover return postage in full and refund your original delivery charge. Sale items are final.

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Every piece in our collection is sourced directly from artisan workshops we know by name. We pay fairly, we visit often, and we believe the people who make a thing should be valued as much as the thing itself. We use natural dyes wherever possible, plastic-free packaging in every order, and we donate a share of every sale back into the craft communities we work with.

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