Hello! I'm Sara, co-owner, co-printer, and designer of Sara Lee Parker Textiles. My husband Simon and I work together from our home studio in rural Georgia. Together, we hand-screenprint my designs onto sustainable hemp/organic cotton which I sew into a variety of home goods such as tea towels, dinner napkins and aprons. Our fabrics are also available in yardage for large or small projects. We use solvent-free, earth-friendly inks and try our best to recycle and re-use materials.
My designs are inspired by traditional textile imagery as well as the natural world. I love browsing through the library or walking in the woods to find something that sparks a new design. Screenprinting has a satisfying degree of technical involvement, yet it is a transparent process that I'm in love with. When I'm designing a pattern, I usually start with pencil, brush and ink, or rubylith - an old-school method of making color separations. The marks and gestures from these tools are carried through to the final piece with a tactility that is often absent in modern digital printing.
The more we learn about the damaging effects of large-scale production practices, the more we try to find sustainable solutions and alternatives. At home, we try to recycle and reuse as much as possible; as our business grows, so doour concerns about the materials we use and the waste we generate.