Olga Prinku; Dried flower embroidery artist’s collaboration with Dried & Floral
Read our latest journal about the beautiful artwork of Olga Prinku, her collaboration with Dried & Floral and how it all started…
At Dried & Floral HQ, we are so proud to have collaborated with Olga Prinku on her first-ever kit ‘Flowers on Tulle, Embroidery Kit.’ It’s the perfect gift for anyone who loves crafting and/or embroidery that can be made in the comfort of your own home. The kit was launched to combine with Olga's first book being published ‘Dried Flower Embroidery; an introduction to the art of flowers on tulle’ which details the technique and designs involved in her work.
I first met Olga at the Stitch show at the end of February 2020. I had been an avid fan and follower on Instagram and to be honest, she was the only reason I wanted to go to the show. Joined by my super-skilled sewing friend Erica Short, we drove to London in search of fabric inspiration and for me to see Olga's work close up. We got there fairly early and the first thing I did was to drag Erica upstairs, straight to where Olga was exhibiting. Her work was even more exquisite in real life, I was completely blown away by her pieces. We took some photos and were just about to leave, when Olga appeared and I just had to say hello. We had a lovely chat and ended up talking about dried flowers and varieties, suppliers, and growers. Olga mentioned that she was thinking of making some kits, so that she could share her pioneering technique of embroidering dried flowers onto tulle, so we ended up swapping details and then went off to find some fabrics for Erica.
Olga Prinku pictured left with some of her favourite dried florals. (Image courtesy of Olga Prinku copyright Olga Prinku).
During lockdown, we chatted a lot with Olga over many messages and zoom meetings, always discussing the possibility of creating kits and where to start. After lots of trials and design ideas, we knew we could make it happen, and so the collaboration process began. Andrea sought out the best packaging options, Sandra kept a track on all of our sources and I worked on the flowers. Olga created the most beautiful pieces to photograph and painstakingly put together the beautiful full colour guide, of how to create your own designs from the kit.
We conducted trial runs, posting the kits to each other to make sure they were packaged correctly and to ensure the flowers wouldn’t get damaged in the post. Finally, they were ready to go, we had our own production line run from our homes, with each stage of the hand-built kits being taken care of. We launched and sent out our first batch which sold out in just a few weeks. Sandra was key to our distribution and kept track of orders sent from Singapore to Puerto Rico.
We worked really well as a team and I know it’s a cliché, but every time an order pinged through we all smiled from Winchester to Yorkshire. Amazingly, the 4 of us have never actually met all together, so we're hugely proud of our first collaboration considering the pandemic circumstances that affected everyone. We can’t wait to meet up one day soon for a cup of tea, or something stronger! It's been such a joyous collaboration and journey that has followed that meeting at Stitch Festival 2020 at the Business Design Centre, Islington.
The kits include an embroidery hoop, stylish scissors, precise detail tweezers, glue, velvet ribbon, and enough tulle for 3 projects and plenty of dried flowers. There's also a full colour instruction book with over 50 step by step photos and Olga’s perfectly written tuition to enable you to create the most beautiful projects at home. The dried flowers we used are Delphinium, Acrolinium, Gomphrena, Helichrysum, and Rice flower. These are sourced from only the best quality suppliers before being cut down to size and then made into little posies, so that they fit neatly into the gift box, all ready for you to use. All of our kits are handmade and put together by us at Dried & Floral, they can be purchased online at our store by clicking on this link.
Olga Prinku pictured left with her bird design as featured in her book ‘Dried Flower Embroidery; an introduction to the art of flowers on tulle’. Copyright Olga Prinku.
It’s been an absolute delight to work with Olga Prinku, we're already working on the next designs and kits to be brought out this year with her, so look out for exciting launches in the near future.