Beautiful hand printed linen, made in Cornwall
Helen Round is a British textile designer and print maker.
Her classic designs, inspired by the flora and fauna of the countryside and coastline are hand printed onto the highest quality linen using traditional screen printing techniques.
The hand crafted linen collections of simple and functional homeware and kitchenware are all made and printed in her Cornish studios. Using small batch production, each piece is made by skilled local artisans from start to finish, with special care and attention to detail.
How it all began…
Helen started the business on her kitchen table over six years ago. Having spent many years as a teacher working in community arts education, she was keen to get back to making. With a background in fine art textiles and a long time love of fabrics and printmaking, she decided to combine the two and set out to create a range of simple, practical things for the home. Working on her sewing machine, it all began with an apron; a long cross-over adaptation of a Japanese design. From there, came a range of kitchen linens, the ever popular bread bag – a perfect eco storage solution, tea towels that dry your dishes, Aga tops, and beautiful table linen. Requests from customers for lampshades and cushions in her designs and soft linen colours expanded the range alongside a useful selection of bags and pouches.
Helen’s designs start life as sketch book scribbles, fine line drawings capturing the surrounding beauty of her native Cornwall. She draws what she sees and these line drawings have a gentle simplicity which are echoed in Helen’s life and beliefs. Her collections are little stories each with their own unique background. Choose from the Garden Collection, Hedgerow, Honey Bee, Rame Head, Quayside and Coastal.
Why Linen?
Not just because we love it…. but flax, the plant from which linen is made, is a sustainable fibre that is recyclable and biodegradable. It is gentle on the land, grows naturally and is easy to incorporate into modern crop rotation cycles.
Linen is strong and naturally moth resistant.
As a fabric, linen has been around for centuries and dyed flax fibres found in a prehistoric cave in Georgia suggest the use of woven linen fabrics from wild flax may date back even earlier to 36,000 BP
We source all of our linen from a small family business in Europe – where it is grown, woven and dyed to our colour palette.
Yes, it creases…but we love that about it too and there is much more to it than that! Most importantly, as we strive for a more sustainable economy, linen is the natural choice for a slower, more thoughtful way of life.
You can find us in our studio, nestled within The Rame Peninsular in South East Cornwall. Here we print and make all of the products.
Next to the studio, you will find our shop where you can buy and browse our full collections. so, next time you are in Cornwall, do pop in and see us!
Helen Round - Shop & Studio - Upper Nissen Hut East - Maker Heights - Millbrook - Cornwall - PL10 1LA
