From the idea to your own canvas - your own Autumn Garden collection

A soft brush across the paper could be heard. Dip the brush into the water glass, wipe it lightly on the kitchen paper and mix the watercolor paint in the bowl.

It's so quiet in the studio. No chit-chat.

Two women are completely relaxed and absorbed in their work. So they rarely sit together. They enjoy it. You would do it more often, but life situations don't allow it. The younger one lives and works in Manchester and is here for a longer visit.

“Mam, I could design a fabric for you,” Julia says into the silence. I look at my daughter with shining eyes and am touched by this wonderful idea.

At that moment, designing my own fabric and therefore my own collection exceeded my wildest dreams. “Oh, what a great idea,” I gushed.

The calm was immediately over. A happy, excited thinking about what direction the design should take, colors, patterns, everything bubbled out of us.

The foundation was laid and the type of design and color concept were soon decided. Julia took her iPad, drew, pushed colors back and forth on the tablet, corrected and after a few days the baby was born.

The time was ripe for printing on paper. Colors on the screen are not the same as colors on paper. Oh yes... print settings, paper selection, profile selection and much more influence the printout. After some printing and consideration, we were satisfied.

Done! We ordered our fabric samples. When the first samples arrived, Julia was back home in England, so I sent her the fabric so we both had the original in hand for the next steps.

We weren't completely satisfied yet, there was still something missing. A small adjustment, a new sample was ordered and now it fits.

We are happy and the big moment has come, the final material is going into production.

Now it's here, the printed canvas! We love the colors!

Each fabric is first washed and hung on the clothesline to dry.

What happens next? You’ll find out in the next blog, so stay tuned.

Kind regards, Heike & Julia