You won’t believe it, but I spent 5 months looking for a perfect tea towel. I tested many companies and I had a few selection criteria: it had to be affordable, practical (can be washed in the washer and tumble dried), had to have great print quality (shouldn’t fade fast) and, of course, needed to be absorbent.
One company, located in Montreal made towels that required not only hand washing but also separate washing from everything else and line drying completely unfolded or otherwise the towel would be ruined as the colours would bleed to the left and to the right.
Another company made great towels but as soon as I washed them they faded right after the first cycle! Those towels also had such rough threading that not only they were not very absorbant, but they very also heavy and pretty rigid. Some companies would only offer a possibility to print a tiny image on them or something like that. And also there was a company that charged so much for their towels that it would cost anyone an arm and a leg to buy one.
And then finally I found these guys. I had my towels printed in the UK! Hand printed affordable absorbant lightweight beautifully made towels! I did have to order in bulk but that was totally worth it.
Every product is unique and it takes time to find the right people to do the job. It takes me sometimes a lot of work on the designs, adjusting colours, colour mode and an image layout. It also takes lots of experimenting with materials and designs. It’s totally worth it in the end though, which I am super happy about. Every time I see a product with my design on it, I feel that something magical has happened because something that has never existed before is here. I also always remember how far I’ve come. When I first started, I literally had no idea of what I was doing. And now - 8 years later! - I can tell CMYK from RGB and know what bleed is
It takes time to develop a skill and all you have to do is to take it one step at a time. Even if you have no idea of what you are doing you just have to keep going. Every move in the right or wrong direction (and there will be many of those!) will take you one bit closer to where you want to be.