A behind the scene look ..

Our linens are made by human hands using the age old craft of wood block printing. These are then brought to your doorstep using leading edge technologies, state of the art equipment, and a global communication and fulfillment infrastructure.

It’s indeed hard to believe how today’s small business has the potential to reach a worldwide audience. Here we go behind the scenes with the hope of sharing this exciting journey with you.

Tropical Garden Christmas photo shoot

by Sandip on Jan 21, 13

The below video is a walk through of the photo shoot. I hope you find it fun to watch . Following the video, I have shared some more details on the photo shoot.

Lighting:

We decided to do this shoot using natural light. The idea was to take a festive looking table picture with the Tropical Garden tablecloth. As a relatively large area would be in the picture, we would have needed powerful lights. Problem is we didn’t have any + we weren’t sure if we would know how to use them even if we arranged to have them. It was sometime mid December and we were in luck; we had a few bright sunny days in the forecast.

We wanted the lights in the Christmas tree and in the garland to show. We experimented around noon, but the light was too harsh. We decided to wait till around 3pm.

Props:

A trip to a close by art supplies store had got us ready with all the props we needed. We had setup the Christmas tree a few days back. The garland was precariously set on the mantle with many sticky tapes.

The gifts, i.e. empty boxes, were meticulously wrapped the night before. There were many of them and finding the boxes ended up being quite an effort. If it had been me, I would have simply wrapped which ever box I could find and get it done. Anisha, on the other hand, wanted every box to be of a certain dimension and we ended up on a treasure hunt to find the boxes that would finally work. Thinking about it now, we should have preserved the wrapped boxes for future use – would have saved considerable time when we do a similar photo shoot in the future (next Christmas?)

Photo shoot:

To warm up, we took a few test shots. It’s always exciting when the first few shots come out just right. This was one such day. The Tropical Garden print was looking luscious. The glow from the candles perfect. The lights from the Christmas Tree and garland just right.

Below are a few test shots. To start off we weren’t too concerned about the specific camera settings. Overall, props were looking ok, and our decision to wait till 3pm was a good one. The Poinsettia in front would mostly have to move. The picture would have to be panned a little to the right and we had to figure out how to get rid of the shadow on the top left.

ISO 200, f/7.1, .3s, 31mm

ISO 200, f/7.1, 0.5s, 31mm

Little better. Poinsettia at the back. Fruit bowl is gone. Picture panned to the right.

ISO 200, f/7.1, 0.3s, 35mm

Got the fruits back but this time on a darker plate. Looks better. We wanted the lights to pop a little more and increase the depth of field so that items at the back are more in focus too. After many tries, increasing the ISO to 400 at f/14 worked the best.

ISO 400, f/14, 0.6s, 35mm

We decided to try using a wreath instead of the vase. But finally decided to use the picture with the vase on the mantle.

ISO 400, f/14, 0.8s, 35mm

Now the final picture when it went on the website. This is after some photoshop work for the additional text and background/borders. Overall, we took 50 pictures and the photo shoot took 50 minutes or so.

Final home page

There you have it. If you enjoyed reading this post, do let me know by commenting below. Any ideas or suggestions are welcome too.

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The romance behind the making of our Quilted bedspreads/Coverlets

by Sandip on Mar 22, 12

Our hand embroidered quilted bedspreads (coverlets) gives a new meaning to owning a coverlet. A must have indulgence; each one is first hand block printed and then sewn together with a cotton sheet backing using the basic running stitch.

The quilting is done exclusively by hand and each quilt takes an artisan a week to complete. The embroidery follows the contours of the block printed pattern thereby enhancing and accentuating it. The quilts do not have any cotton batting and will be light to medium weight.

Currently we make them in small quantities for only a few prints. But we are hoping to extend them to all our collections. We need to work on the process to make it scalable. There is no lack of romance in the process though.

Someone comes to our studio and picks up the order. He then travels to villages in the vicinity and gives them to groups of women artisans who then do the hand quilting. The quilting process is a communal activity – lots of chatting, laughter etc – and gets done when it gets done! Years ago, I remember asking them for an estimate and the simple answer was “it will be done once the women finish the quilting ”. These days where time is of “utmost importance” and we need to “deliver against our commitments”, I have to say, this approach to planning is a welcome break.

Making the process scalable is simple – instead of sending the quilting work to 2 villages, we can send it to 10. However, ensuring consistency in the quilting is another matter. After all, if a customer is purchasing a coverlet based on the picture on the website, they are only justified in expecting to see the quilting as shown in the picture!

We have had a few challenges with this in the past. Every artisan doing the quilting has their own “style” and they like to make it known! However, we look forward to figuring this out in the days ahead and to bringing you this exquisite work in more of our prints.

Once quilting is done, the person will deliver them back to our studio, where they are then cleaned up and packed for final shipment. Hope you enjoy the below pictures.

Click here to see our collection of coverlets (we call them quilted bedspreads).

Would you like to see them made in any of our other prints? The Shop by Print section on the website has all our prints. We look forward to hearing from you – let us know by commenting below! Thank you

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Fall in love with Cotton

by Sandip on Jun 20, 11

Sometimes you come across books that talk about the mundane, but with such clarity and humor that you cannot put them down. The other day Anisha purchased Cotton: The Biography of a Revolutionary Fiber

My interest was piqued – “What is there to write about Cotton that will hold anyone’s interest?” I thought. OK, maybe a paragraph, stretch that to a chapter, but a 300+ page book? I decided to investigate and started reading it…. WOW. Stephen Yafa, the author, most definitely is gifted.

All of Saffron Marigold’s linens are made from 100% soft cotton. It also is the perfect vehicle for us to deliver on one of our guiding principles: to offer one-of-a-kind handprinted linen at affordable prices

Although I haven’t finished reading the book as yet, I would like to share with you a paragraph I read yesterday – I hope you enjoy reading it too:

Cotton is family. We sweat in cotton. It breathes with us. We wrap our newborns in it. In fact, we pay cotton the highest complement of all: we don’t go out of our way to be nice to it. Look in your closet. The rumpled things on the floor are most probably cotton – soiled shirts and khakis, dirty housework clothes and muddied socks that rise up in dank mounds ready to be baptized with detergent and reborn in the washer, fresh and clean as new snow. Linen, silk, wool – uptown fabrics to be sure, on display in the magnificent Bayeux Tapestry woven shortly after the Norman Conquest or in priceless Aubusson rugs, but not happy to be scrubbed with sudsy hot water and churned like butter in a dryer. Those fibrous divas demand attentive coddling while cotton, the sword carrier, needs only three squares a day and a pair of shoulders to drape itself over. Cotton is the fabric wool would be if it were light enough for summer and didn’t shrink to toddler-size in the dryer; it’s what silk would be if it gracefully absorbed sweat, and what linen might aspire to if it didn’t wrinkle on sight

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Story behind Sultan’s Palace: How is it printed?

by Sandip on Jan 24, 11

We recently launched Sultan’s Palace: our Moroccan Inspired Blue bedding and Table Linens collections.

This collection, like all our others, is printed using the traditional craft of Hand block printing. Wouldn’t it be nice if we were able to go “behind the scenes” and actually see how the print comes together. Well, we have done just that.

Click here or on any of the images below to see how the Sultan’s Palace comes to life under the talented hands of our artisans.

Printing the Background color	4 blocks later: Print with colors
Printing the "water effect" on top	It takes 6 blocks and many hand stamps to get the print!

If this has piqued your interest; yes it is an amazing process of transformation indeed…, I am sure you will enjoy seeing the steps involved in the printing of the Sultan’s Palace.

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