About Us

Meet Paula Ozier Designs

Paula Ozier Designs is a sisterly venture between Paula and Michelle Ozier. We dreamed up our vision in early 2009 to combine Paula's creative talent and desire to see a wider choice of quilting fabrics in the UK with Michelle's ability to make things happen.

Paula has a degree in textile design from the University of Leeds. She loves all things crafty and colourful, and shared this passion for several years as a teacher of textile design in a secondary school. Despite missing the classroom and interacting with her students she now enjoys the creative freedom of working for herself. Paula worked for a year in Seattle in her early twenties, and has ever since lamented the limited choice of fabrics available to crafters & quilters in comparison with the American shops. Her vision to rectify the situation became a reality in June 2009 with the launch of her first line of original design quilting fabrics. Her designs are vibrant and fun and reflect Paula's love of colour. She carries themes and colour combinations across a selection of designs to create mix and match ranges, ensuring that you never need to go far to find just the right polka dot or stripe to compliment the bolder imagery of her other designs. Paula draws inspiration from objects and scenes she encounters in daily life and is never far from her sketch book or camera to capture an idea for later development.

Michelle is Paula's older sister, and after graduating in Chinese and Spanish studies from the University of Leeds, she moved to Shanghai, China where she has remained a permanent resident ever since. She owns her own manufacturing consultancy business in Shanghai and after 16 years of hectic-paced Shanghai life has started to feel a draw back to the more balanced routine of a European lifestyle. She now moves between her home in Shanghai and second home in SW France and finds the time to support the operational aspects of Paula's business. She uses her strong manufacturing background and language skills to move the production process of the fabric along, and enjoys taking care of the behind the scenes adminstration of Paula Ozier Designs.

Our Production Process

Once Paula has finalized each design, she sends it electronically to Michelle who takes it to the printer to run off a first sample for final confirmation of colours and design layout. We carefully select a high quality quilter's cotton that Michelle sources directly from the mill and instructs them to half-bleach and pre-shrink before she takes delivery of it in rolls. We use a digital printing process to allow for shorter runs and eliminate the need for physical plates. The printer prepares the cotton by calendering and applying an adhesive primer and tiles the electronic design on special software that then feeds the printing instructions to the wide format digital printer. After printing, the cotton is steam treated to fix the ink and Michelle collects the finished product in large folded bundles. Michelle re-folds the bundles onto manageable bolts and sends these to Paula who presses and cuts them into neat fat quarters ready for sale.