"Our native flora deserves to be on every table."
Emma Harrington trained as a textile designer in Sydney and spent a decade drawing prints for other people's labels — most of it destined for cushions covered in English roses. The frustration finally boiled over at a trade fair aisle full of cartoon kangaroos and eucalyptus so stylised it could've been any leaf from anywhere. She went home and drew a waratah properly, from a bloom bought at the Carriageworks markets, and couldn't stop looking at it.
The move to the Hunter Valley came in 2022 — a half-renovated cottage outside Pokolbin with a shed that became the print studio and a garden that became the reference library. She screen-printed the first tea towels on the kitchen bench while the shed was still getting power connected, and sold them at the Hunter Wine Country markets on a trestle table.
The studio label has grown from that trestle table — small-run printing in the shed, hand embroidery for the tablecloths and napkins, stoneware glazed with a Newcastle ceramicist. The rule from day one still stands: every design begins as a drawing from a real bloom, celebrated in full colour. No kitsch, no beige, no apologising.