Theodosia Albandi
Known simply as Sia.
Born in Northern Greece, where Aegean light, water and ancient forms shaped what she would later draw. She designs bed linen, blankets and mosaic mirrors, and writes books on Greek design, embroidery and the bedroom.
The open-air terrace studio
A teacher first
Before design there was teaching. Sia holds a PhD from the University of Nottingham, with a thesis on adult education and the professional situation of English teachers in Greece. She directed a Second Chance School, founded three language schools, and still teaches English and art in Munich.
Her motto, in the classroom and the studio: life-long learning.
Munich, 2020–2022
In 2020 she began studying at the Akademie für Gestaltung und Design in Munich, training under lecturer Hanni Geiger until 2022. Her thesis created what she called a “dreamland of colour” in bedding patterns.
That thesis became Morpheus Blue Dreams: the foundation of Sia Albandi Designs.
How a pattern breathes into life
Sia works al fresco, with white canvas and navy linen draped across a portable frame, their textures open to the Mediterranean air and sun.
One stroke
Every pattern begins with a single unplanned stroke of azure gouache on white canvas, painted outdoors on her terrace.
Mirroring
Calligraphic mirroring turns the simple mark into a symmetrical form, keeping the energy of the original gesture.
Repeat
Multiplied and rotated, the mark grows into spirals, lattices and mandalas. Drips, smudges and ghost prints stay in.
Refine
Only at the end do digital tools refine the drawing into a precise repeat for printing, without losing the hand that made it.
Stage 1 · The stroke
Stage 2 · Canvas & linen
Stage 3 · Island light
“Each mark poses a question to the medium: what if I let this pigment flow?”
Why only blue
Prussian blue for the cobalt depths of the Aegean, electric ultramarine for the Greek sky above it. Every motif goes back to ancient tilework, Cycladic frescoes and stone-carved capitals.
For Sia, blue is also a way out of the everyday and into the realm of dreams. The bed linen is named for Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams.
What the coast leaves behind
The mirrors are built from what the coastline and the studio leave behind: broken porcelain, sea glass, mother-of-pearl and hand-gathered shell. Teacups and plates that did not survive the summer are cut by hand and set back together, shard by shard.
Because each one is built by hand, no two mirrors are ever the same, and each can be made to the measurements of a room.
She writes, too
Her books follow the same thread as the collection: Greek pattern, embroidery, mirrors, and the rooms we sleep in.
- Threads of Eternity: The Eternal Language of Greek DesignFind on Amazon →2025Published
- The Bedroom SanctuaryFind on Amazon →
Companion volume to the Morpheus Blue Dreams bed linen collection
2025Published - The Needle Remembers: Greek Embroidery and the Return to Handmade Beauty2026Forthcoming
- The Mirror Absolute: Surface, Soul and the Seeing Self2026Forthcoming
- Threads Across Civilisations2026Forthcoming
See the ten pieces
Five bed linen sets, a blanket and four mosaic mirrors, all from the same hand.