I have a confession....

Confession time. I’m going to tell you something which may change how you think of me. After this I may lose your patronage. You may never read this blog again. You may unfollow. Unlike. Unfriend. Whatever. I’ve thought long and hard about divulging this information and have decided that it’s the only way forward - the only way I can move one.  I need to be open about this. And honest. So here goes. Deep breath...

My couch is cushion-less. In fact – there are no cushions in my living room. But it gets worse. There are no cushions in my bedroom either. In fact – there are no cushions in my house. Yes that’s right. My house is cushion free. I know I have probably lost any respect you may have had for me as a crafter, as a mother, as a homemaker, indeed even as a human being. I mean, what self-respecting middle class inner suburban Melbourne woman lives in such a puritanical, hard and ungenerous fashion without so much as an op-shopped hand crafted or a chevron screen printed pillow to alleviate the blankness of the leather three-seater against the wall?? I mean, even the Neanderthals in their caves probably had cushions!

Sure, there have been cushions in the past. I’ve even shown them on the blog, here, and perhaps in doing so misled you, dear reader, as to my lifestyle of choice. It’s not that I don’t know how to make a cushion. I know! I even know how to poof it up and place it against an armrest in a way that is pleasing to the eye. Jeepers! I’ve even made cushions for friends and loved ones. 

There was a time, somewhere many years (and a few babies) ago that there were soft colourful squares of fabric filled with a fluffy substance and trimmed in red piping that snuggled into my back as I watched television. When looking at old photographs I sometimes spy them in the background and feel a blush of shame creep across my cheeks. 

What on earth happened to me? I know you are wondering. I mean, what could make someone lose all sense of comfortable living? Could there even be an excuse for such extreme deprivation?

Let me say just a few words in my defense: 

Three. Children. Under. Two. 

When these three preschoolers took the term “scatter cushions” to be a verb rather than a noun and had to act on that imperative as soon as they entered a room, I tried very hard to keep up. I picked those things up every five minutes. I placed them in a colour co-ordinated fashion on the couch.  I patted them and gently squeezed them into uniform shapes.  I even tried to nonchalantly toss them into position to get that not-trying-too-hard-look-because-I’m-realitic-and-know-my-home-will-never-be-design-files-worthy. 

But then one day I snapped like a well sprung mouse trap. I simply couldn’t stand it any longer. I unstuffed those fabric pouches, squished the bloody lot into a plastic tub, covered it over with a pile of blankets and placed the tub at the bottom of all the other plastic tubs in the craft room like a guilty murderer disposing of a body. Sometimes, when I’m in the craft room searching for supplies, I see them out of the corner of my eye, squashed and misshapen against the clear plastic side and I shudder a little and avert my gaze.

 

Since then, as a host, I have subjected my guests, old or young, big or small, to an uncomfortable semi-reclining position on the couch regardless of whether they are watching television or eating or having afternoon tea. Admittedly, the position does put a slight strain on the neck and puts pressure the core muscles which undoubtedly stultifies conversation. Occasionally it results in a bit of spillage.  The absence of back support is like the elephant in the room. 

Right now, the couches sit looking cold, empty and lonely. Unadorned and neglected. There is a distinct chill to the room. Not even the addition of an extensive 70’s wood veneer Noblett wall unit has helped warm the atmosphere. Sometimes I have to avoid the room altogether and so, I admit, the Noblett goes unpolished. 

I’m writing this confession in the hope of a brighter future. Surely this is the first step. Acceptance. Honesty. There. I’ve told you. I have no cushions, of the throw, scatter, floor or even novelty variety. I promise to try to change. I promise that I will start to see cushions in the way they have been intended. Not as devices of torture my children use to drive me to the mad house. Not as large squares of rubbish that litter every corner of my house. Not as something always out of place and undone that requires my constant attention until I am hiding in the corner of the laundry  curled into a ball, rocking back and forwards while humming the theme song from "Rosemary's Baby".   

To put it simply, I will try to not see cushions as chaos incarnate…..but rather as civilised puffs of comfort that improve lifestyle, friendship, family and harmony. From this day forward, I am going to try and look at a cushion without requiring anti-anxiety medication. I’m going to try and see cushions as simply friendly – why even benign- pieces of soft home furnishing.

With your help, fellow bloglandians, I am going to embark on project cushion.

Happy International Women's Day!

I’m a feminist and....... I craft?

What have you been doing, so far, on this International Women’s Day? I’ve dressed children, vacuumed the floors, mopped, done two loads of washing, changed beds and called the high school to make an appointment with the year 12 co-ordinator. And now I can finish some sewing. Yes – that is my life; lots of housework and crafting. And no, it’s not 1965 – it’s 2012! And here I am, a modern educated feminist, who has a life right now that very much resembles my own mother’s life in the sixties. Has anything changed?

Being at home with small children can be a lot like a bad acid trip. And for those of you fortunate enough never to have endured a bad acid trip, it’s like floundering around in a world that is in a state of flux where achieving anything, even the most mundane and ordinary, is virtually impossible. See the connection?  I could do housework until the cows come home and still have handprints on the t.v. and food smears on the furniture.  It’s like a sad predictable pantomime where I’m the butt of the joke - cleaning in one room while the kids are messing stuff up just behind my back but I can’t hear the audience shouting, “Look behind you!” The lack of achievement or completion of anything, despite such hard work, can be demoralising and frankly a bit depressing. I can’t have my days being only about child rearing and housework.  I’m simply not someone who can be at home with kids and find fulfilment in the nurturing and domesticity – I have to have something more; something creative.

I remember being pregnant with my first child. I was just 20 years old and studying at a fine arts degree, majoring in sculpture. With a big belly and wearing overalls, I welded and cut metal and, gee,  was I tired as that belly got heavy! The realisation dawned on me that sculpture like this and being a mother to a baby were two mutually exclusive activities. In the end I welded some metal rods to little bases and made some old bricks into flowers on those stalks; a twee sculpted garden.  It was raising the white flag - a declaration of capitulation to domesticity. As a mother, my art was going to have to be home based.

Great Granny's Crochet Quilt

I come from a long line of crafters. My great grandmotherwas known for her fine crochet work, my granny and her sisters were all good craftswomen and my mum could make just about anything and tackle any craft she came across. Through their crafting, these women were ingenious and resourceful and, through common sense and poverty, they were also environmentally sustainable.  There was a need to darn and mend and recycle and stitch and make do. No idle hands! Spare time was used up in useful creative pursuits. And is this a bad thing? There seems to have been a pendulum swing back to crafting. Influenced by retro fashion and environmentally sustainable sensibilities (and with a dash of whimsical sentimentality), recent generations have embraced craft. In doing so, we honour our mothers and grandmothers and give recognition and validation to their skills and talents. But do we also confine our creativity to a domestic sphere and add to our household workload?

I’m not an artist – I make art and craft while at home with kids, just as my mother did. Mum would always say she wasn’t creative because she couldn’t draw and yet she could do any craft you can imagine and make most things, all while remaining serene and raising eight children. But it was all house or children focused craft - dolls, clothes, wall hangings, quilts, cushions and doilies. Just like female painters of old were confined to painting domestic scenes. This element to crafting raises the feminist shackles in me and makes me want to, if not burn my bra, at least re-fashion it into a macramé pot plant holder! Because I have become, for want of a better term, a “stay at home mother”,  in charge of all things domestic, does that mean all my creative energies must be focused toward the family as well?

 It’s a practical fact that craft is a creative pursuit that fits in well with the housekeeping and child rearing. But sometimes I find the domestic focus of craft dispiriting. It’s not like I can be welding a huge sculptural folly in the back yard is it? No. I’m crocheting a funny looking but useful pinafore in left over wool using up minimal space and making minimal mess. I’m not painting a mural for public work or even a fairly naive wonky painting for some exhibition. No, I’m stitching a felt robot hot water bottle cover for the children – recycled, environmentally sustainable and fun for the kids. Sometimes the creative frustration still bubbles away and the home themed and practical focus of craft is just another confinement. 

While a return to craft has been a big trend for many people, I question how it fits with our feminist ideals. Crafting is time consuming and could my time be better employed? Does crafting distract me from other achievements? While I love that craft skills, like those my mother and grandmother and great grandmother had, are recognised for the skill and cleverness, it is still essentially a domestic pursuit. And then there is the crafting with irony - we can be subversive with our sewing,  dogmatic with our doilies, strident with our stitching – but in doing this are we invalidating the traditional crafts of our mothers by making fun of them? Or are we saying, “I can craft with irony and still be a feminist even though I’ve just spent at least 18 hours cross stitching rude words to a wall hanging?”

 Craft is also popular for the sustainability of the practices and recycling opportunities it presents. But while we’re darning, turning doilies into collars, recycling frocks into children’s skirts and jumpers into legwarmers, what are we getting? Besides a pair of legwarmers we don’t really want or need and the satisfaction of not having added the hole-ridden jumper to landfill? Because we can recycle it, does it mean we should? (see denim light shade!) 

And what of the hours and creative energy spent doing it? Would I have been better off seeking more education? Reading a book? Writing a book? Creating art? Getting out of the house? Improving employment opportunities? Doing voluntary work? By doing craft, are we, as stay at home mothers, just keeping our head above the drowning pull of housework or burying our creative heads in the sand of domestic life? Are we enhancing our lives in line with a Ruskin philosophy or simply adding to our domestic load? Are we avoiding homogenised-globalised-consumerism by making individual different household items? Or simply surviving creatively while our children are little?

So! I craft because it fits in with my lifestyle at the moment and if I didn’t, my creativity would be severely frustrated and that frustration may bubble and explode in any manner of strangeness. But sometimes I wonder if, like some sort of “Stockholm” syndrome, I have begun to love my domestic imprisonment without even realising it and my creative ideas have now become all contained and homey?  Have I forgotten the big picture of what I want to do with my life? Do I avoid thinking about my life while I numb my thoughts with a meditative chant, “knit two, purl two”? Is it a kind of  therapy for the shell shocked repercussions of child birth? Or do I realise that, for now,  to have individual, idiosyncratic, handmade items grace our everyday life is a privilege that enriches our home? I don’t know!  Why do you craft?

Now, where’s that bra? I have just the pot plant for it....

It's Christmas time but life goes on...

Two of my friends have recently had babies. This felt-a-bet Q is for baby Quinn...now I'm off to make a felt-a-bet "A" for baby Abigail, who was born the other day on her father's birthday!

Do you have some family birthdays at Christmas time? One of my sister's, Josephine, has her birthday on the 21^st of December. And yes. Her name really is Josephine Mary because she was born so close to Christmas! Another sister's birthday is on the 27^th and my daughter Hazel is on the 28^th.

Josephine always said she had to wait longer for her birthday than anyone else. Well, time is relative and that must have been how it seemed to her after seeing six other sisters and a brother celebrating their birthdays throughout the year. Although, I think pre-Christmas birthdays are better than post. The sister on the 27^th always hated “joint Christmas/ birthday presents” and really, who has the energy the day after boxing day, to whip up a cake and get all excited about a birthday? Most of us are still in recovery mode. And we were in BIG trouble if the present was wrapped in Christmas paper!!!

But really, for all their complaining, these sisters and Hazel end up getting more birthday consideration and more presents in the end. More family are around, more of us are in buying/shopping/making/posting mode and an extra present gets popped into the parcel. So I hope Quinn and Abigail will grow up enjoying their birthday celebrations amid the buzz of Christmas anticipation.

Pin the moustache...

Here's the BIG fox wall hanging (he's about 80 cm x 80 cm)I've been working on...all recycled jumpers and blankets, the orange and green have been hand dyed.                  

                                   

The dapper fox has 5 different styles of moustaches for playing the party game. It's been interesting to work on a larger scale than the re-sew-cool brooches and bag-tags too. Different challenges - takes up more space to make it for one thing. Now I'm going to hang the fox on the wall and let the twins and Baby Joe have a game. They have been very patient watching me finish it...NOT! Yesterday they enjoyed a rainy day game of pin the tail on the donkey. 

posted by Julianne sister outlaws

Finish things Friday....almost!

Well it is so close to be finished. It's a sustainable party game/wall hanging!Pin the Tail on the Donkey! It's all recycled materials, has 6 tails (one was missing in this shot??) all different colours so players know who is who. Oh and I also made a gingham blindfold as well. Now I just need to work out how I'm going to hang it up. I was thinking of punching in some large eyelets rather than a casing for dowel but am still undecided.

Now I'm bursting with sustainable party ideas..I've started another wall hanging that I'm also turning into a party game. Can you guess what it will be???

posted by Julianne Sister outlaw

things on the boil, things on the back burner

Don't you hate it when you can't keep going on a project because a) you run out of something......or
b) you need to go and buy something?

My "she'll be apples" project has met with an obstacle (run out of wool!), a different project has stalled (I need to get eyelets), a pair of pants I'm sewing need a zipper and the party pack artwork needs to be printed and the printer is on the blink! Well I guess I have a few things on the boil (and I'm not talking multiple dinners like yesterday!) and a few things on the back burners.

So today I started something new - and went as far as I could without needing to get more supplies from the studio....

And I dyed this blanket orange with another project in mind...hmmm...might start that one tomorrow!

As long as I make little steps and make some progress, then I'm happy. In other words...as long as it's all still cooking!

posted by Julianne Sister outlaws

In praise of random colour

When I was four years old my Granny knitted me a striped short sleeved jumper from the scraps. I loved that jumper. So much so that I refused to let my Mum throw it away, long after I had grown out of it. That and a yellow dress my Mum had  painted the seven dwarfs around the bottom edge with hobbytext.

Some of my earliest memories are of random colour combinations. My mother was very resourceful and always used up the scraps, just as Granny did. We had striped jumpers, patchwork quilts, granny rugs and I had a terrific patchwork dog too!

So it is no wonder that I love random colour combinations. I love exploring the terrain and finding nooks that suit my mood, right then, in that moment, where I want to dwell a minute - but then other ones that will fit my mood tomorrow. The seemingly never-ending combinations and discoveries keep my interest and seem to suit my mind set. Some might call me flighty. Or just easily bored.

This quilt was crocheted by my Granny, Mabel, and it was always on my Mother's bed as a quilt...

 Short sleeved jumper to replace the one I had when I was four....

My well loved every day tapestry handbag given to me by fellow sister outlaw Lynne..

The rug I'm making from the left over seams of felted jumpers..

 And beads....