The Quilting Collection will be live on our site this Tuesday, April 1st at 1PM ET! Your collection preview blog post with full product details will be available tomorrow (Saturday, March 29th). So you can plan ahead for launch day, here is your Hazelnut-exclusive shopping link: Shop the Quilting Collection

This collection is extra special because the Hazelnuts were involved in its design and development from the very beginning. We put together this blog post for any newer Hazelnuts who might be curious what that process was like, and for any Hazelnuts who would like to look back on the journey. We hope you enjoy! 🪡♥️

August 16, 2024

Exciting news, Hazelnuts!! We are inviting you to join us on the journey of designing, developing, and producing a Hazel Village collection. We’ll be showing you each step of the process, and asking for your opinions along the way! The plan is to release this collection in early 2025. The first step is choosing a theme – Jane came up with five wintery options for you to peruse. Head to the poll linked below to cast your vote! We’ll narrow it down to the top 2 options and then move on to sketching before deciding on the final theme. We hope you’re excited to embark upon this adventure with us!

September 6, 2024

Hazelnuts, let’s check in on our collaborative design project! Recently we asked you to vote between 5 different theme ideas, and the results are in: the top two were Quilting and Ice Camping! Now it’s time for you to peruse our designers’ pencil sketches for these collection ideas and vote on which one we should proceed to develop. Keep in mind that the sketches you see here are not final! The details of specific designs will likely change over time, new items may be added, and some of the items you see here might not make it to the final collection. We recommend casting your vote for the collection whose overall vibe you prefer!

In the pencil sketches above, you can see that a number of things changed from this collection's inception to its final form. Jane had sketched a blanket vest, which we decided not to develop. Sara had sketched a puffy jacket, which was later swapped for a different quilted jacket design. Jane and Sara had each sketched a different appliquéd piece, which ended up being combined into 1 item. We also went on to add 4 additional pieces to this collection.

September 27, 2024

Let’s check in on our collaborative collection! You voted, and the results are in: it will be a QUILTING COLLECTION! Once it was clear that quilting was the chosen theme, we knew it was only right that we should make the animals their very own cozy quilt. Sara has illustrated three different potential designs, and we need your help choosing which one to develop. We hope you are enjoying this peek behind the scenes into our industrious design room here at Hazel Village! 

The Hazelnuts voted for Quilt #1! As you can see in the final product, this quilt continued to evolve as our design process went on.

November 1, 2024

Hazelnuts, let’s check in on the Quilting Collection! Our team has now finalized the designs for this collection’s seven items – you may notice that many have evolved since the last sketches we shared with you! We need your help for the next step: deciding how many pieces of each item the artisans should make.

Our production timeline requires us to commit to quantities before we have seen how the final items turn out. This is easier said than done! Normally we compare the designs with similar items that we’ve released in the past, consider how those items sold, and use a hefty dose of guesswork to determine how many of each new item we should make. As a small business with slim margins and a dedication to sustainable and ethical manufacturing, overproducing is never an option for us. We thought we should take advantage of this collaborative Quilting Collection project, and get your insight to help us decide! 

We took the numbers from this poll and adjusted them slightly based on what our artisan partners could feasibly make. As everything went into production, we stayed in close communication with the artisans and made adjustments as needed based off factors like how long each item took to make and how expensive they were to produce. For example, we ended up making fewer quilts than we had originally planned because they were simply so labor-intensive and costly. Such is the way of ethically made handicrafts!

 December 6, 2024

Let’s check in on the Quilting Collection for 2025! At this stage, we have reviewed samples for every item and made the necessary adjustments to their designs. All 7 items are now either in production or in the final stages of development. Several of these pieces are very labor-intensive to make – we anticipated this, but working with our artisan partners in the development process has made it all the more evident. Take the patchwork quilt, for example: first, the cotton fabric is custom-dyed in our chosen colors and all the patches are cut and pieced to make the quilt top. Next it is layered over batting and the custom-woven backing fabric, then it’s time for the hand-embroidered decorative stitching, and finally the quilt is finished with a hand-sewn binding. That is quite a lot of work!

Since the artisans are always fairly compensated, it means that these items are also quite expensive. We had originally estimated that the retail price for this quilt would be about $30, but it is now clear that number will need to be closer to $45. Though we do feel it is appropriate for such a beautiful handmade thing, we also understand that is quite an expensive price tag for a doll quilt. We thank our lucky stars for this wonderful community of Hazelnuts, who appreciate these special handicrafts as much as we do. Only the best for our woodland friends!

January 17, 2025

Now that it’s 2025, we thought you might perhaps be wondering when the Quilting Collection is going to launch. We had originally hoped to release it in January, which then became February, which has now become late March. If you are familiar with handicrafts, it probably will not surprise you to hear that creations like this take a lot of time. But everything is coming along quite nicely, and we’re pretty confident right now that our late March launch date will stick!

March 14, 2025

We have a rather exciting update for you: we have decided to make the Quilting Collection HAZELNUT EXCLUSIVE. To tell you the truth, this will be a bit of an experiment for us. We have not released a Hazelnut-exclusive product since 2022, and we have never released an entirely Hazelnut-exclusive collection. But since we’ve shared the journey of creating the Quilting Collection with you at every step of the way, it felt like the perfect opportunity to give it a try!

Here is another behind-the-scenes tidbit: the jacket pictured above was originally designed as part of the Cozy Layers Collection, which launched last November. In production it became clear that this jacket could not be finished in time for that launch, so we moved it into the Quilting Collection instead. Its fabric is a custom-woven yarn-dyed cotton in soft variegated tones of green and pink. Here are some photos of the fabric being made: 

And with that, we are all caught up and back in the present day! Thank you for reading and for coming along on this journey with us, friends. The Quilting Collection will be live on our site this Tuesday, April 1st at 1PM ET! 🪡♥️

Prepare to shop here: Hazelnut-Exclusive Quilting Collection Page