After 17 years, she left the world of fashion and became a student at Sydney’s College of Art. She also learnt eco-dyeing – a process using natural dyes and patterns from plant materials – from renowned artist and authority in that medium, India Flint. Today, she designs and produces an exquisite range of handcrafted eco-dyed scarves under her label Annie’s Workroom from her studio at Doonan on the property where she lives with her husband and two children. She aptly calls the family’s move from Sydney three years ago their ‘tree change’. Anne’s light-filled studio sits in the heart of the fourhectare rainforest property, surrounded by whispering eucalypts, birdsong and the intoxicating smells of the bush. If you stumbled upon it whilst walking through the forest, you might think it was a fairies’ workshop, or the store of an old world apothecary: jars, pots, saucepans and bottles of every description sit on the floor, on the shelves and in cupboards. They are filled with all sorts of ingredients in various stages of preparation – this one is copper and sea water, that one has shells, that one rusty nails in vinegar. There are jars of different combinations of tree bark, leaves, tannin, soy milk, vinegar and lemon. Anne combines these myriad ingredients, including plant material from her local surroundings, “and things from my fridge, or the ocean and the bush” to produce unique pieces in the form of her scarves, made with ethically sourced natural silk, cotton and wool. She collects leaves and flowers from the surrounding trees to create patterns on the fabric. Each specific type of leaf throws unique colour into the dye. “But a lot of the time I work from wind fall,” says Anne. “Like today, when there’s leaves everywhere all over the ground, and I’ll just walk round and pick them up.” She proceeds to do just that, demonstrating the eco-dyeing process with some eucalypt leaves she folds and rolls into a piece of cotton, ties with natural twine and puts into a pot >
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