Embroidered College Pillows, University of Virginia

Carmel and Terrell Swan share a lot of things, including a love of travel and an interest in offbeat and eclectic visual combinations. They also get inspiration from the work of David Hockney, Sonia Delauney, graffitti, old cartoons, and Hermes window displays. Terrell is a doodler, he loves to draw with anything that comes to hand. Carmel loves glitter glue pens. She's also working on a book of photos shot out of the backseats of cars in the rain.

The Swans' favorite customer story is about a woman who'd had one of their Iowa pillows, which was destroyed with everything else she owned in a fire at her assisted living facility. The woman told her daughter the pillow was the only thing she'd lost that she cared about enough to replace, because it reminded her of so many happy memories of the place where she'd grown up. It's that kind of thing that keeps them happily living and working together in Petaluma, California.