Introducing our UK-based cushion brand Evans Lichfield.
Established as a family business in 1986, Evans Lichfield have been designing and hand making cushions for over 30 years and have become masters of the craft. And still, over 30 years later the family business work ethic still runs deep within the factory.
Typically known for creating the most stunning hand painted cushion designs. Every single Evans Lichfield cushion that we sell has been designed, printed, cut and lovingly handmade by our very hard working team in our Staffordshire based factory.
The attention to detail that goes into producing our cushions is second to none. So let us take you on a tour of our UK based factory to tell you a little bit more as to how our cushions are made…
Design
The starting point of all our cushions begins with our design department. We have a small team of talented in-house designers with an illustrative background that carefully hand paint all the illustrations that we use for our cushions.
We take inspiration for our designs from a variety of places. We like to be aware of popular fashion and interior trends and keep up-to-date with what’s out there at the moment. From this we select what is most relatable and best suits our signature brand.
Most of our designs start life as raw paintings or drawings. We love to use a mix of different drawing mediums, but watercolours and gouache/ acrylic paints are always a favourite. Creating original artwork for our cushions ensures that our designs are always authentic and sets us apart from more digitally led cushion brands. We like to think that we have developed a truly distinctive hand painted look to our handwriting style.
Printing and Cutting
The finalised designs can then be set up to be printed by our in-house digital printing team. Firstly they print our designs onto heat transfer paper which is then pressed onto the specific cushion fabric, et voila!
Once printed and pressed, our fabric heads to the cutting department. All the printed fabric is laid out and each cushion panel is then cut by hand and is ready to be sewn up by our machinists.
Sewing
Our sewing department is ever growing. At present, it is made up of around 25 incredibly skilled machinists who lovingly sew each and every one of our cushions.
Each of our machinists have a particular role in the sewing of our cushions. Depending on the complexity of the cushion style, each cushion might be sewn by 2-3 different machinists. For example, the first person will start by sewing the case and the second person will then sew the zip.
We also have a team of specialist machinists who are faster than the speed of light, and able to sew the most complex styles of cushions. Each machinist will make around 600 cushions a day, and as a business we will sew around 25,000 cushions a week. Yes, that’s a lot of cushions!
Once the cushion cases are sewn to perfection, they are then laid inside out by our machinists. Each one is then turned by hand, a tag is added and the cushions are quality checked by a member of our specialist team.
Once all our cushions have been quality checked and are good to go. They can then be filled with either a perfectly plump polyester or luxurious feather inner and sent out to their new homes.
We truly believe it’s our hands-on approach from designing through to cushion manufacturing that makes our brand unique. From start to finish each stage is done by hand.
