At 6ft tall and plus-size, shop-bought clothes had never fitted Maree O'Connor well.
Sewing offered her a solution - allowing her to use beautiful fabrics to make garments that fit just right.
One day, while on the lookout for colourful prints to make new dresses, she spotted some "amazing" fabrics being sold online.
Enticed by a yellow floral pattern and another black-and-white abstract design, she splashed out $600 (£450, A$900) on three orders.
Months later, none had arrived.
It was October 2024, and tired of waiting, the legal studies teacher from Melbourne, Australia, decided to set up a Facebook group to try to find out if anyone else was in the same boat.
The group exploded. Within two weeks it had drawn hundreds of members, according to Ms O'Connor.
She had unearthed a scandal that would consume the sewing world - from China to Europe, to the US.
In the group, other sewing enthusiasts detailed how they too had been waiting months - and in some cases years - for fabrics to arrive, while a supplier alleged it was owed tens of thousands of dollars.
At the centre of the controversy was globally renowned designer, Nerida Hansen.
Her company had grown rapidly during the pandemic, when she made a name for herself selling bold, distinctive fashion prints that set her shop apart from other retailers.
Popular with sewists - as members of the sewing community call themselves - around the world, her fabrics often appeared in influencers' Instagram posts. Some newspapers had even dubbed her Australia's queen of fabrics.
"People liked what she was doing and producing," said UK-based artist Gabriela Larios, who has worked with Ms Hansen.
"My impression of her was that she was doing something different and new in Australia," added Sarah Rowe, another artist who worked with Ms Hansen. "I was impressed by her, she was formidable."
That's exactly what excited Bergen Anderson, who ordered more than $3,300 (£2,500; A$5,000) of Ms Hansen's fabrics in 2024.
She planned to use them to make clothes which she would sell through her US-based children's clothing business.
But, as in Ms O'Connor's experience, none of Ms Anderson's goods arrived within the eight-week window that was promised.
Instead, she received a number of what she described as "generic" emails, saying her orders were soon to be printed and shipped.
She also received a number of emails from Ms Hansen saying suppliers were delayed sending goods because of events like national holidays.
"It was every excuse under the sun," Ms Anderson said.
Frustrated and in search of answers, she too stumbled upon Ms O'Connor's Facebook group.
In it, she found customers wondering where their money had gone - and why the company was still accepting orders even though so many people were saying their fabrics hadn't been printed or shipped.
Suspicious of Ms Hansen's business practices, Ms O'Connor encouraged customers to request refunds and dispute transactions with their banks.
Ms Anderson only managed to get two out of three payments reversed through her bank, meaning she was still $808 (£606; A$1,224) out of pocket.
Meanwhile, Ms Hansen had become aware of the Facebook group and contacted Ms O'Connor asking for it to be taken down, claiming that content posted in the group was defamatory - a claim Ms O'Connor rejected.
Ms O'Connor said Ms Hansen also offered her an immediate refund if she no longer wished to wait for her goods.
"I got my refund pretty much straight away, because she wanted to shut me up."
But she decided not to shut up - or delete the group.
"She was just going to continue to do what she was doing, and take money from people because people were siloed right, they didn't know what was going on."
In the group people were sounding alarm bells about announcements from Ms Hansen saying she was rebranding, worried about what that would mean for their undelivered orders.
Ms Hansen went on to trade under a number of different business names online.
By then the group had grown beyond disgruntled customers to also include Nerida Hansen's suppliers.
William Shan worked for a supplier in China that sold material to Ms Hansen's company - until, he said, the payments stopped.
He was "helpless" when he "accidentally discovered" the Facebook group, he said.
Mr Shan alleged Ms Hansen's firm failed to pay for two fabric shipments worth $52,000 (£39,000; A$78,700) in 2022.
He said he initially felt sympathy for Ms Hansen, who he thought "may have encountered difficulties".
He continued supplying her in the hope it would "help her recover as soon as possible and collect her [company's] debts".
But he says later orders - worth thousands of dollars - also went unpaid.
"We [trusted Nerida] too much. From 2020 to the end of 2021, Nerida's credit [had] been consistently good. So we did this stupid thing of continuing to supply her," Mr Shan said.
Mr Shan's company said it had hired numerous lawyers to try to recover the money owed by Ms Hansen's companies, but she and her business associates stopped communicating.
In September 2025, nearly a year after Ms O'Connor started the Facebook group, a public warning against Ms Hansen and her businesses was issued by the Victoria state consumer rights agency.
It was the result of multiple complaints - Ms O'Connor had advised fellow customers on the group to report their experiences to Australian authorities.
"I urge consumers to be wary about purchasing goods from Hansen's online platforms or engaging further with Hansen," Consumer Affairs Victoria (CAV) director Nicole Rich said.
The warning said that over the course of one year, the agency had been contacted more than 120 times by customers claiming to have lost more than $19,800 (£14,900; A$30,000) in purchases.
It also said Ms Hansen had operated online under a range of business names, including Indigo Palm, The Kind Merch Co, Nerida Hansen Fabrics, Rebel Quilts, Australian Surface Art Collective, Fabric and Design and Nerida Hansen Print and Textiles. Ms Hansen said this was untrue, denying she used all of these to trade.
After the warning was issued, Ms Hansen announced she would be shutting down her businesses by the end of the month to start a new career.
But she continued promoting fabric sales on the website domain names Global De-stash and neridahansen.com into November.