Kelly Searl is the creative mind behind the beautiful textiles in our Pony Rider feature this week. Launched back in 2009, Pony Rider is known for its fabulous prints, sometimes incorporating vintage motifs but always with a contemporary edge.

Kelly's background is in design and marketing, and she worked for fashion brands such as One Teaspoon, Sass & Bide and others on textile prints for clothing, before taking the leap into homewares. She can't help little excursions back ino the world of fashion from time to time - keep an eye out for Pony Rider wearable throws soon.

"I am a massive collector of objects and things that I find joy in," she says, describing her bowerbird tendencies. "Pony Rider is a collaboration of all the things I like." She loves the design process, and spends several weeks each season designing the range before working on having her designs printed and sewn in Australia. She describes local production as "a labour of love", but prefers the higher level of control over the quality of her products. "It is important to support local industry, but it is hard to stay onshore when prices keep bumping up. We try to work around the limitations of local makers, and sometimes it ends up making for a more interesting product," she says.

And her personal decorating style? "I never have anything in my house that isn't something that has a function or that I have a real love for. As a result the house is a mish mash of things that sometimes don't go but they seem to work." Sounds very much like an updated version of nineteenth century textile designer and writer William Morris's advice to "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful." Sage advice, both then and now.