For Aznie, every leaf is part of earning a living

Long before Siti Nuraznie Ibrahim learnt how to transfer the shapes and colours of leaves onto fabric, she was already happiest surrounded by plants.

As a child in Kulim, Kedah, she would wander through the forest behind her kampung, collecting anything that caught her eye and bringing it home for her little garden.

The plants seemed to respond well to her attention. “Even my mother was amazed. She said she had been growing them for years, but they never flowered. Yet when I planted them, they all bloomed,” she told Bernama with a laugh.

Her fondness for gardening followed her to Kuala Lumpur, where she eventually settled with her husband, cartoonist Azhar Ahmad, better known as Tembakau. Wherever they lived, she planted seeds brought from home or collected nearby.

Then, in 2018, her life changed abruptly when Azhar suffered a heart attack and died at 46. Siti Nuraznie – known to friends as Aznie – was left raising three children, the youngest only four at the time.

She tried to remain in salaried employment but found it increasingly difficult to balance work and childcare. By 2020, she had left her administrative job.

A later attempt to return to full-time employment brought another calculation familiar to many parents: the salary being offered, she said, was below RM3,000 and would not stretch far enough once childcare and household expenses were taken into account.

So Aznie turned towards something she already knew well – plants.

Today, the 46-year-old produces eco-printed textiles from her Sentul home, using leaves, flowers and other plant material to transfer natural colours and patterns onto fabrics such as cotton and linen.

On production days, the work begins early. Aznie gathers leaves and flowers from her garden, along roadsides and sometimes while travelling to her son’s school or running errands. Among the plants she uses are teak, lemuni, ulam raja and beko leaves.

The material is washed and dried before being arranged carefully across treated fabric. “Turn it over. Don’t let it all be the same,” she told a friend as the pair worked on a recent batch.

Once the arrangement is complete, the cloth is rolled tightly around a PVC pipe, bound with string and steamed for almost two hours so the plants can leave their pigments and impressions behind.

There is an element of suspense to every batch because the result cannot be seen until the bundle is finally opened.

Mistakes once frustrated Aznie. Now, after about two years of eco-printing, she is more willing to work with whatever emerges.

Unexpected marks can be incorporated into another layer of the design rather than discarded, and some of those imperfect pieces have proved popular with buyers.

Textile expert Dr Rusmawati Ghazali said eco-printing has gained popularity locally over the past decade partly because it offers flexibility to people who need to fit their work around other responsibilities.

For Aznie, that flexibility is essential. She generally produces five or six pieces of cloth at a time and receives orders mainly through word of mouth and contacts made among other home-based artisans.

Her purses and T-shirts are also sold through a social enterprise that helps her reach a wider market.

But flexibility comes with a trade-off: Aznie’s earnings fluctuate according to orders, available materials and how much time she can devote to the work. That makes eco-printing very different from receiving a predictable salary at the end of every month.

Her household income is supplemented by zakat and other assistance, but her business has yet to give her the kind of financial buffer that usually comes with formal employment.

When income has no monthly rhythm

Khazanah Research Institute researcher Ilyana Syafiqa Mukhriz said more Malaysians are earning outside conventional employer-employee arrangements, but access to social protection has not necessarily expanded at the same pace.

Home-based artisans such as Aznie are generally treated as independent workers rather than employees. That means there is no employer automatically contributing towards retirement savings or employment-related social protection on their behalf.

Voluntary schemes are available for the self-employed, but Ilyana noted that take-up among informal workers remains relatively low.

“For informal workers, the safety nets that cushion lifecycle risks are largely absent, voluntary, or only now being made mandatory,” a KRI study published in July found.

Aznie still has retirement savings accumulated during her years in salaried work. She also contributes to self-employment social protection when she can, although those payments are not always regular.

That uncertainty has not persuaded her to abandon the business. As her skills improve and her network expands, she is beginning to see more possibilities in work that allows her to remain present for her children while earning on her own terms.

Back at the table in Sentul, the morning’s steamed bundle was finally ready to be opened. Aznie and her friends carefully unrolled a reddish-pink length of cloth.

Leaves and flowers appeared in greens and yellows across the fabric, prompting gasps around the table. The relief lasted only briefly before Aznie’s attention moved to the next experiment.

“I recently obtained some eucalyptus leaves,” she revealed with a smile. “I can’t wait to try them out.”

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