We don't work from a factory floor.
We work under a tree.
The first time Amanda and Anna sat down with the women of the stitching village, there were children playing nearby. Fabric spread out on the ground. Laughter moving between conversations in two languages neither side fully shared. And hands - confident, practiced hands - showing two New Zealand designers a detail stitch on a velvet quilt that they had never seen done quite that way before.
That is where every DAC Underprint Quilt finishes its journey before it reaches you. Not in a facility. In a community.
The village
The stitching village outside Jaipur is part of a textile tradition that has sustained families in Rajasthan for generations. The women who stitch here didn't train in a classroom. Most learned from their mothers - not as a career path, but as part of growing up. Something practical. Something expected.
What changes when that skill meets fair, consistent work is something harder to describe but easy to see: steadiness. A rhythm. The particular kind of confidence that comes from earning your own money, making your own decisions, and knowing that your work matters to someone specific - not just to a production quota.
The women
Mohini stitches by day and studies psychology by night. She is building a future her mother never had access to - one careful, deliberate decision at a time.
Meena moved from Bihar to Jaipur and has made herself one quiet promise: her daughter will marry after 20. Not before. Every rupee she earns goes a little way toward making sure that's possible.
Sheela didn't always earn her own money. For years, financial decisions weren't hers to make. "Earlier… always asking," is how she describes it - asking her husband, asking within the family, waiting for permission. Seven years ago, that changed. Today she sits among fabric and thread, her three children finding their own paths, and she no longer needs to ask in the same way. The change, she says, isn't loud. But it's real.
Yashoda came to stitching four years ago, when her children grew independent enough that life made space for something new. Before that she'd worked in small ways - finishing garments, helping where she could. Now she is an artisan. The money goes toward her children's education. When asked how life is now, she answers simply: "Good." No grand statements. Just steadiness.
Suman moved from a rural village near Rajasthan to Jaipur with her husband, both of them looking for work. He sells fruit and vegetables. She stitches. Two incomes, one shared goal. She learned to stitch from her mother - the way most of these women did - but here it has become something more: income, stability, a step forward. When the conversation turns to dreams, she talks about wanting to learn new skills. Block printing, maybe. A glimpse into a wider world of craft.
What this means for the pieces you bring home
Every underprint quilt that leaves the DAC studio has been in these hands. Not metaphorically - literally. Mohini stitched the Lattice Quilt. One of these women finished the piece you're looking at right now.
When Amanda and Anna travel to Jaipur, they don't visit a showroom. They sit under a tree with the women who finish every piece, work beside them, learn from them. The velvet quilt stitching detail that makes DAC pieces distinctive - the one Amanda had never seen done quite that way - came from a conversation exactly like that.
That is what fair wages and consistent work make possible: not just income, but skill being shared in both directions. A relationship, not a transaction.
When you buy a DAC piece, that connection travels home with it.