About Me

Umbrella Prints is a textile house recently started by Amy Prior and Carly Schwerdt.
A beautiful new range of printed fabrics has arrived!

Amy Prior is the creative behind another surface pattern design business, Pattern House.
Pattern House first began as a retail outlet in Croydon SA in 2003 where Amy sold her own hand screen printed fabrics, lampshades handbags and cushions. Now her collectible patterned brooches sell on-line internationally and in select galleries/shops in South Australia and interstate. Her artwork is shown in solo exhibitions.

Amy completed an honours visual arts degree at UniSA in the mid 90's majoring in printmaking. She then studied textile design at East Sydney Tech. She has lived and worked in Kyoto, Japan and Sydney and currently teaches art at the infamous Ruth Tuck art school for children.

Carly Schwerdt is the principal of Nest Studio, an art studio for children (and adults too). Carly studied visual arts & graduated from an honours degree in visual communication (graphic design) from UniSA in the late 90's, which included major studies in printmaking. Carly also has a postgraduate degree in education and teaches art & printmaking at Nest Studio. Upon discovering and falling in love with the Print Gocco machine in 2003, she has been printing on textiles ever since. This desire to print lead to co-founding another textile group, Sprout Design in 2006.

Nest Studio has, since it's conception in 2003, been a big advocate for indie artists and crafters. She opened her store with a toy exhibition, Morphe, that primarily aimed to promote independant artists and the craft friends she had made online through her widely read blog "Moopy & Me". She continues supporting her passion for art and craft by hosting annual exhibitions such as Morphe, Morphe 2 and the most recent, to be held in June 2008, Modern Australian Textiles. You can find a number of Carly's patterns for toys and craft projects in books published by Penguin, Lark, & Hardie Grant.

Carly and Amy worked seperately, yet side by side for a number of years until finally realising what a fantastic duo they make, and as they say the rest is history.

Together they have over 25 years of experience in the art and design world, creating textiles and artworks that have been exhibited and sold world wide.