Revival Collection

Jun 27th 2022

Bringing new life to old designs was the ultimate goal of Herrschners new Revival Collection. The process of bringing these designs back to life began in 2021, when Herrschners purchased the rights to a huge collection of vintage designs that hadn’t been in production for years. The 50+ year old designs arrived in two large boxes, and we had no idea what the designs looked like or the condition of the paper patterns. Back in the day, the stamping process was manual. The patterns were hand-drawn and then perforated to allow the blue, wash-out ink to pass through onto the fabric to create the desired design.

Digitizing the Patterns
After brainstorming and weighing the pros and cons of digitizing the frail and fragile paper patterns, we ultimately decided to take a high-resolution photograph of each design in our photo studio. Examples of these images can be seen below. As you can see, each design was in a different condition. Some patterns had more ink than others, and some had streaks, making it a challenge to see the pattern clearly.

Sorting and Labeling Patterns

Sorting and numbering the paper patterns was the first step to get the designs into usable form. The patterns were sorted by quilt block and pillowcase designs, and then cross-stitch or embroidery. In total there were 146 quilt block patterns, of which 31 were cross-stitch patterns and 115 were embroidery. There were 427 pillowcase designs, of which 11 were cross-stitch and 416 were embroidery. This gave us a grand total 573 patterns that had to be sorted, labeled, and digitized.

Assigning Stitches and Colors

After we had a digital copy of the patterns, our creative team went to work to create a digital version of the pattern. Below you can see images of the paper pattern and the digital re-creation of the pattern. This is used for customer instructions and stamping files. The debut of the collection was comprised of ten quilt blocks and ten pillow cases. The patterns were then assigned stitches and refreshed floss colors. All of the floss colors used in the thread kits of the Revival Collection are different combinations of the colors that make up the Revival Floss Collection

Creation of Revival Floss Collection

The Revival Floss Collection is comprised of six existing embroidery floss colors from Craftways and six brand-new colors that were added specifically for the Revival Collection. To enhance the floss collection, we created a special wooden floss and storage box that comes with a free pattern that you can stitch on the top of the box. The pattern complements the Revival Collection logo.

Designs Sent to be Stitched

The next step was to create a stitched model of each design that would be going into the next catalog. Ten quilt blocks and 10 pillowcases would be introduced in the next needlework catalog. To do this, our product development specialist had to hand trace the design onto a piece of fabric to send to a stitcher. The stitcher then keeps track of how many skeins of floss were used for each color; that is how we create the thread kit. The stitched model is then photographed by our creative team. A unique aspect of this collection is that each of the designs has its own classic name, such as Lucille, Beverly, or Penelope, to make the vintage collection items stand out.

The Revival Collection made its catalog debut in December 2021. The plan is to continue to add to the collection each year to showcase all of the stunning designs.