There's a moment in every collection when all six of us look at the wall and finally see it: The spark, the thread, the unmistakable pulse that ties everything together. But getting there? It's never linear. Never neat. And never as simple as "we chose a theme and started drawing."
Our collection-making process is messy, emotional, layered, loud, quiet, chaotic, beautiful, and deeply human. And we wouldn't trade that for the world.
This is the truth of how a Lily & Inc Studio pattern collection is actually born—brush-first, heart-led, and crafted by six creative minds trying, somehow, to harmonize.
The Opening Notes: Where Inspiration Actually Starts
People always imagine inspiration as this lightning bolt moment, but for us, it's softer—like the early hum of something we haven't named yet.
Sometimes it begins with a piece of fabric someone found in a thrift shop bin. Sometimes it's a sketch one of us made absentmindedly on a train ticket. Sometimes it's a color—usually one we all pretend we aren't secretly obsessed with (lately: dusty clay pink and a mossy olive we keep returning to).
And sometimes, it starts with a mood. A smell. A place. A memory from someone's grandmother's garden. A postcard tucked inside a book.
We gather these things in a giant shared folder we lovingly call "The Beautiful Mess." This is the seedbed of the whole collection.
It's not trendy. It's not clean. But it's ours.
Our Sketchbooks: The Real Start of the Surface Pattern Design Process
Before iPads or Affinity or tiling or vectorizing, there are always sketchbooks. Six of them. Six different handwriting styles. Six different kinds of chaos.
We draw without rules at this stage—just lines, shapes, flowers, vines, motifs, textures, washes. It's the most unselfconscious part of our entire workflow, the only moment when no one is thinking about licensing briefs or collection cohesion or what a buyer will want.
We draw what we feel. We draw what we see. We draw what we fear won't translate if we wait too long.
Someone is always working with ink. Someone else is buried in gouache. Someone can only think in colored pencil. And at least one of us is taping leaves to a page like a child.
This is where our individuality thrives—before everything folds into the collective voice.
When the Studio Wall Becomes the Storyboard
Digital files get lost in the noise. A wall does not let you ignore anything.
We print everything—ugly sketches, half-formed motifs, odd color swatches that don't match anything yet—and pin them across the studio wall. Then we stand back like detectives trying to solve a case.
You can see instantly which ideas are too safe. Which ones don't belong. Which ones are quietly begging to be the star. Which colors are arguing with each other. Which shapes are repeating too much. Which direction the collection naturally wants to grow.
We talk a lot during this phase. Loudly. With hands. With coffee. With opinions that come out sharper than intended because we care too much.
This is the moment the collection begins to breathe. Not because of any tool—just because six humans are looking at the same wall and trying to find the thread.
Painting Days: The Heart of the Collection
Traditional media is non-negotiable in our studio. Even if the final piece becomes digital, the beginning must carry the marks of a hand.
On painting days, the studio goes quiet in that concentrated way that feels almost sacred. There are jars of murky water from rinsed brushes. There are palettes someone forgot to clean. There are paint-stained mugs we pretend are for tea.
Someone is always working with broad watercolor washes—loose, fluid, emotional. Someone else is deep into tiny botanical lines. Someone is building shapes that will eventually become repeats. Someone is painting motifs on separate cut-out pieces so they can be rearranged later.
These days smell like paint, paper, and something alive.
The textures we create here cannot be faked. AI can mimic. But it can't feel. And our buyers can tell.
Pulling It Into the Digital World (Without Losing the Soul)
Scanning day is both practical and emotional. It's the moment the analog world hands its heart to the digital one.
We bring everything into Affinity Designer or Procreate—cleaning edges, adjusting scale, refining shapes, building repeats, testing color variations. But we never polish the life out of it.
We leave brush textures. We leave imperfect edges. We leave the quiet wobbles that remind you a human hand made this.
This is where the individuality of each artist becomes the collective voice of the studio. Six perspectives, one final harmony.
When the Patterns Start Talking to Each Other
There's always a moment—usually around week three—when something clicks. The motifs start echoing each other. The colors stop fighting. The hero print steps forward. The supporting designs fall in line.
We print everything again and pin it back on the wall, now in something resembling order.
This is the birth of the collection.
We can suddenly imagine it on silk scarves, cotton lawns, wallpaper, home goods. We can picture the woman who will love it. We can imagine her holding it, choosing it, wearing it.
The collection stops being ours and starts being hers.
The Final Touch: Turning Art Into Fabric That Lives in the Real World
When the patterns are ready, we prepare files for fabric printing—color profiles, scale adjustments, seamless repeats double-checked. Then we order test swatches.
This is the moment everything becomes real.
The color is never exactly what we expect. The scale always shifts how we feel about the design. The fabric texture changes the mood entirely.
We argue. We adjust. We rework.
And then, suddenly, there it is—the exact pattern we imagined weeks ago, finally printed on fabric, alive in our hands.
Nothing compares to that.
No screen can match the feeling of holding your own work on silk, cotton, or linen. This is why we do what we do.
Want to See the Behind-the-Scenes of Our Next Collection?
If you love watching the process, meeting the team, or seeing how a collection grows from messy sketches to finished textiles, sign up for our studio newsletter. Or if you're searching for bespoke patterns for your brand, interior project, or product line — we'd love to design something beautiful for you.
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