Chantilly: Lauren and Jessi Jung

It’s been a big year for the talented mother-and-daughter design team of Jessi, Lauren, and Carrie Jung. Jessi and Lauren’s Birds and Bees fabric line made its appearance in July and their latest line, Chantilly, is headed for stores now.

Jessi and Carrie created projects to accompany Chantilly, including two quilts and the Mosaic Purse.

And they’ve been hard at work (with some assistance from Lauren) on a book due out in March: Sweet and Simple Sewing: Quilts and Sewing Projects to Give—or Keep.

“My mom and I do the fabrics and my sister and mom do the projects,” says Lauren. “It’s a bit of a tag team effort.”

Lauren says the process for designing Chantilly was different than the way they created their other fabrics. “We’ve been obsessive about designing with a certain theme—Hideaway was folksy and Botany had an Art Nouveau feel—but this one is a little more eclectic.

We’ve got a mosaic print, a lace print, some that have an ever-so-slightly 30s feel, and some are inspired by embroidery,” says Lauren.

Jessi does the lion’s share of drawing and for Chantilly, she created about 40 images to which Lauren added color and put into the computer.

“We looked at them as a series and pulled out the ones that made sense,” says Lauren. “This time, we wound up kind of going with the flow. We really love the color scheme of this line, and the simpler drawing style, too.”

After their busy year, the Jung family is ready to kick back over the holidays. Like most years, they’ll travel to their grandparent’s home in Pennsylvania (the sisters live in Nevada and New Mexico, while Jessi’s in South Carolina). “They have a small house and we fight over the one bathroom and hot water for showers,” says Lauren with a laugh. But the highlight is their Christmas Eve meal, when they celebrate the Feast of the Seven Fishes. “My grandfather is from Italy, so he and the other relatives make all kinds of seafood dishes—calamari, different fish dishes, and tuna pasta,” says Lauren. And there’s another tradition that Lauren hopes will continue this year. “Carrie usually makes us something out of our fabric,” says Lauren. “One of our patterns is a pleated purse, and I really hope she makes me one!”