A sewing response!

The month after my family moved to Tasmania in 2010 my Nanna, Theda Witter died. Nan was my Dad's mum, she was a stylish and at times formidable woman who loved the finer things in life including opera, red wine and pearls! Interestingly, Nan was quite a contradiction as partnered with her luxurious taste were her serious frugal tendencies. Like many women of the depression Nan hated waste, of any type. She was an amazing home cook and also a magnificent sewer; upcycling anything she could,  as nothing, well nothing much was ever thrown out. In their 1950s home in Carlingford they had a magical sunny room upstairs dedicated to sewing. I have very vivid memories of sneaking up to this sacred room, drawing open the green curtains and riffling through her haberdashery and material delights with my sisters. My Nan's husband, my Pop, was a self made entrepreneur who was a charming and charismatic man. He made a living amongst other mad ventures, by selling recycled clothes and rags with his company Witters Australia which my Dad later ran. While second hand clothing and "the factory" were not a passion for my Dad, Witters was a fantastic business which as well as funding our family, was a source of great pride and joy for me and my siblings. We, along with Mum grew up loving second hand clothes. Sorting bags of rags was a fabulous past time for us and for periods in the 1990s fuelled a Glebe Market stall for the Witter kids. These throw-outs from Sydney were treasure troves of sometimes smelly and sniffy but always potentially magnificent and highly prized pieces. I still get a shiver of delight rummaging on $5 tables at second hand clothing markets, searching for that not so elusive bargain.

My response to the project has been to rekindle and weave some of these memories of my Nan into my Tassie life. Soon after we started the project I got out a sewing machine that was new but unopened in its cerise Husqvarna box. Not since school have I sewed a stitch. Inspired by memories of my Nan I started sewing, nothing major just bits and bobs using my husband Andrew's old shirts. It appears that like my Nan I also hate waste, and love to upcycle. I had never thought we were similar but I must say through this project I feel her genetics or memories or fragments of her life ebbing in me. When I told my elder sister Jane what I was doing she said she had salvaged some fabric from the magical Carlingford sewing room which I could have. With the sewing machine, fabrics and old materials and tablecloths that I have been accumulating for years I have set up my own "sewing room". It is not as sunny, but it is starting to feel a little magical. I can sneak away to the room and sew, or dream of sewing, or sometimes just sit at the sewing machine. As part of my response to the project I have made my two daughters: Beatrix and Florence a skirt each, made from some of the remnants that my sister gave me. As I sat at the machine stitching away I smiled and laughed at how much free and whimsical joy I was getting out of making little gathered skirts for my daughters, in honour of my Nan.