Why textile arts? - Part 1: My Mum

I often wonder when or how I became interested in textiles and arts. I don't really know when or how, but when I think about it there have been lots of indicators... (In order to avoid an epic post and boring the pants off you all, I'm posting this in several parts)

My Mum always shakes her head when people ask "did she get her creativity from you?" but I think that she sells herself short. Mum used to do lots of sewing when we were kids and made lots of our clothes. I've also made curtains with Mum for the whole house and we recovered the lounge suite too. See Mum might say no to the creativity, but I've been surrounded by fabric and sewing and textiles since I was little - Mum can certainly take credit for that!

It was Mum who taught me to sew. I don't remember what age I was, but she used to let me use the sewing machine to make clothes for my dolls (Barbie dolls they were too and the clothes for them are tiny!!). As I think now, she was probably very brave to let me at the sewing machine so young, but I'm very glad she did.

She used to get terribly frustrated too when I would cut my 'patterns' out of the middle of a peice of fabric. She laughs now as she watches me juggle pattern pieces to get the most out of a piece of fabric and then saving all the scraps. (see Mum, some things DO change). My other early memory of sewing (ewww! that makes me sound old!) was struggling with the construction of shorts. I want to make a pair of shorts for my dolls and couldn't work out how to get the two tubes of the legs to join at the top so that a body would fit in.

And who says that Mum's not creative. She has come up with some pretty spectacular costumes for fancy dress balls and book week dress-up days (costumes for Mum I mean, not us kids).

That's Mum on the left (I'm thinking she was a punk-rocker but I couldn't say for sure)

And more proof of Mum's creative ability..

The Easter had that Mum and I made when I was in grade 1 or 2.

Stay tuned next weekend for Part 2: Highschool.