About.
Tanya Cain-Abbs is the textile designer behind the Old Grey House, named after her weatherboard cottage and home-based studio in Perth, Western Australia.
After working in the fashion industry, Tanya naturally progressed into homewares combining a love of interiors and the experience gained working with design, fabric and printing. She has always had a love of natural fibres, print & pattern and her focus is to create beautiful tactile products that are designed, printed and made locally.
Her work is inspired by the abundant beauty found in Western Australia’s natural environment, ranging from the coastal regions of the South West where she loves to holiday, to the flora and fauna of native bushland. The inspiration is drawn on paper, photographed, tested, deconstructed, reconstructed, printed and repeated until she finds what keeps her coming back.
The tableware collection consists of hand screen printed botanic images printed on linen tea towels, napkins, placemats, tablecloths and cushions in a monochrome palette of oatmeal, hessian, charcoal and ink. She uses sustainable printing methods that use water based inks and she prints on natural base cloths, linen, cotton, hemp or silk.
Tanya's love of natural dye, especially indigo has been shared to many for over 6 years, either teaching adult workshops or school based residencies. Shibori is the art of folding, binding, clamping and knotting to compress fabric to create a resist. The colour, technique and unpredictable nature of this craft is always a joy to work with and she has loved sharing this art with others through workshops and creative gatherings.