Grey Lady
Serene Fabric Collection for Home Textiles
Cotton In Curriculum 3rd Place Winner 2025
"The Grey Lady, a home textiles collection, was inspired by the soft mist and fog that often embraces Nantucket. Crafted from 100% cotton knits, and cotton rich wovens, and prints, the collection captures the essence of this quintessential New England seaside town through a palette of rich ocean blues, subtle greys, and tactile textures.
Motifs for The Grey Lady collection were influenced by the painterly brushstrokes and balanced interactions of florals and structured lines found in traditional Chinese blue-and-white porcelain designs and the flora and fauna that grow abundantly on the Island. Handcrafted embellishments such as delicate embroidery, crocheted cotton flowers, and beading add artisan craftsmanship and elegance to the pieces in contrast to more traditional jacquard knits and wovens.
Each fabric will be treated with CottonWorks TOUGH COTTON™ technology to improve durability and abrasion resistance, and STORM COTTON™ technology to repel water and protect against everyday spills. These classic, heirloom quality fabrics will be enjoyed long after summer drifts away."
Above are the colors used throughout the collection in all mediums including the prints, woven, and the knit fabrics.
Pattern Collection
This collection is a mix of prints, wovens, and knits to be able to give a mix of textures for the space.
The collection was created using Adobe Photoshop, EAT, and Shima Seiki knitting software. This collection also has some hand embellishments used
End Uses
This is a room illustration of the intended use of the products to show a comprehensive view of how all of the fabrics would work together in one space.
Display at Interwoven
This collection was entered in the Cotton in Curriculum Competition at NC State University in conjunction with Cotton Inc and Cotton Works. The theme this year was Cotton Innovations: Pioneering Fabric Formation and Embellishment which wanted participants to explore cotton and leverage inspiration from innovative techniques found in fabric construction, surface design, and embellishment. This collection was double juried and was shown at Interwoven Textile Fair by ITA in High Point, NC from November 18-20, 2025. The Grey Lady won 3rd Place!
Process
The collection started as research into a home aesthetic which was Nantucket. From there I worked on creating different patterns while working with a mentor. Through that I started with 10 designs. From there we chose three to continue with for the time being and create them into woven fabrics. This was done using EAT software and was woven using industrial jacquard looms.
From there I took some of the designs and started to develop them into knit designs using the Shima Seiki Software. Once the fabric was knit I embellished them using small crochet flowers, beads, and embroidery floss to add more details.
The last part of this project was creating a few prints to help round out the collection. For the one design I just used Photoshop to create the design and the colorways. The floral design was originally hand drawn and colored using colored pencil. From there it was scanned into the computer and cleaned in Photoshop. Next it was cut and copied to make a larger repeating pattern and then recolored in the program to get multiple colorways.