All Pyne & Smith Linen fabrics are our own custom designs. Each linen is thoughtfully created after many hours of sketching, re-working, digital mock ups and final drafts.
Sometimes it’s really hard, and I end up starting from scratch, and sometimes it flows really well. Here’s a peek into our designing process.
The new Fall Linens was one of those hard, uphill battles that took weeks and weeks. Most designs start in my head, and then I sketch them out (Last year I bought a Airpad which has been amazing for drawing! I don’t waste paper and the various tools with the sketching app that I use mean that I can create texture on the drawings that look similar to linen.)
After creating potential new designs and colors, I try to bring the Linen designs to life - creating digital mock ups of the potential new Linens so I can really see how colors that are woven will look together. This is part of the process that takes weeks - very often the linen might not look how I want it to, the colors don’t blend well together, it’s too dull or it could be too overwhelming, or sometimes they just look perfect and I can move forward with bringing them to life.
Once I am happy with how the mock-ups look, I start to match them to dress styles, and this part is ever changing, right up until the cutter begins cutting them out into dresses!
I have to consider if a style is too similar to a previous style, will it work on a large area of linen, would I want to wear this, would it be too difficult to accessorize with shoes, boots, cardigans and jackets? After spending time decision making on which linens I will order (and this is the scary part, because I won’t actually know how well a linen will turn out until it is actually woven) I place the linen order, and the linen mill gets to work yarn dying the linen spools before it is woven.
Then the weaving takes place, and it’s around a 4-6 week process for this to be completed. I get notice from the mill that our linen is ready to ship, and it arrives two weeks later, ready to be cut into dresses.
Sometimes a color might be slightly different that we had created - and so I might switch dress style for one or two after seeing them in person. I then sample make each style to make sure that they look good and that I’m happy with the overall effect, and then dress production begins!