The Art of Making: Embroidery

The craftsmanship that goes into our delicate embroidered fabric gives it a simple beauty all its own. No two stitches or knots are the same. The raised texture of the thread catches the light and casts shadows, creating a layered, pattern-on-pattern effect. We love how embroidery enriches a fabric scheme and then, in turn, a room with texture, dimension, and depth. From the start, we wanted our embroidered designs to be truly one-of-a-kind. That’s why, when we decided to expand our collection with embroidered textiles in 2016, we had them made in India, where the heritage and craft of embroidery goes back thousands of years. Indian embroidery has a soft, handmade, artisanal quality that we love. Our hand-guided embroideries are made in Delhi, while our machine-sewn, computer-guided embroideries are made in Bangalore and Kannu in South India.

Working with a production partner halfway around the world on specialty textiles takes a lot of time, patience, attention, and DHL envelopes. There’s no way to speed up the process by working online; colors and textures simply can’t be represented accurately that way. Creating them is a labor of love, for our team in our Charleston, South Carolina, studio and for our partners in India.

Sun and Moon Fabric Production

How Our Embroidered Fabrics Are Made

Each embroidered textile begins as a sketch in Rebecca’s notebook, the seed for a design. The next step, after Rebecca chooses designs for an upcoming collection, is selecting potential ground fabrics and thread colors. We bundle the ground fabric and thread together with quality samples that show how we want the stitches or texture to look, then we seal the package, ship it to India, and eagerly await a reply.

Weeks later, we receive the first round of samples. Rebecca’s painted swatches have been transformed into fabric; the patterns have come alive. Depending on the effect we want, the embroidery may have been applied by hand, machine-sewn and guided by hand, or machine-sewn and computer-guided. The base fabric is woven of hand-dyed thread by craftspeople using hand looms.

Budding Stripe Fabric in Light Blue

We hold the fabrics up to the light to see the shadows the stitches cast and layer them with existing fabrics in our collection to observe how they work in combination. We also pin all of the samples up on the wall, by color, so that Rebecca can look at the grounds of different patterns together and assess them together. She might like one ground of one design so much that we request to use it for another as well. Or we might switch the grounds of two designs, to give the assortment more variety. Sometimes decide to strike a particular color or hold it for another season.

Those first samples are rarely perfect. Typically, we adjust the color of the embroidery. It may need to be lighter or darker, depending on the contrast we want to achieve. We send our feedback to our Indian partners, and we wait six weeks or so to get revised samples. The process continues, trading samples and feedback by mail, until the colors of the hand-dyed ground fabric and embroidery thread are just right. With each round, the samples of fabric grow bigger and bigger, until finally we get full bolts rolled up in a tube. Production takes 12 weeks after our final approval.

Our Commitment to Sustainability

To establish our stock, we produce 100 yards at a time (in the beginning, we started with 50). That quantity requires us to work with a factory rather than a smaller workshop. We take great care to work only with reputable facilities that are ISO accredited (ISO-9001-2008 and SA-8000/2008) and Oeko-Tex 100 compliant. It’s essential to us that the work environment is fair and safe, so that our products are ethically produced from start to finish.

Complementary Trade Samples

To appreciate the delicate beauty and softness of our embroidered fabrics, you really need to touch and hold them up to the light. Log in to your trade account and place an order for complementary samples to add to your library now.