Karen

I do sew special things for my grandchildren.

When each grand baby is born, I make them their own playmat. This is a combination of appliqué, patchwork and anything else. I have no rules. Each one is their own story. The first one was an under the sea, as his parents scuba dived, another was dinosaurs, her father made a comment about girls being into dinosaurs. I have made 6 and in the process of planning another for a baby due in February.

My eldest granddaughter is 7 and very creative. She is very keen to learn to sew and we have special time together and I am teaching her. This is very special to me. I taught her mother to sew, but I have more time and patience for her.

Life changing moment

My husband of 40 years passed away 2 years ago, after 12 months of being sick. This changed my entire world, everything in my life has changed, except my sewing.

My sewing is my world and something that is part of me and who I am. My husband would be interested and always say: ’that looks nice’. He would sit outside the fabric store and read the paper, and not complain, but it was my world.

So, now my sewing is something that is a constant in my life. It is also a respite. When I have strong emotions that I am not coping with, I can spend hours in my sewing room. I can spend time just touching fabric, remembering times when I bought fabric (I tend to buy fabric when I travel and go places) or who gave me pieces of fabric OR I maybe very productive. It is my space, a safe space.

I worked as an Occupational Therapist for 40 years, and then taught at uni. Sewing as a hobby and life skill very much fit my philosophy of OT and my life. Life needs to be balanced, I need to look after my mental health, especially now and sewing does this for me. It also gives me a role within my family.

I always make matching outfits for my grandchildren at Christmas. Last year they were across 3 countries but had matching outfits. It allows me to express my creativity and explore new aspects. It is now becoming a large social component, as I meet new people through sewing groups, advocate for the sewing groups that I have started and become a reference for people about sewing activities.

The birth of Newcastle Australia Frocktails

I put a lot of my sewing on my Instagram account (sewingbykaz) Through this I have met many wonderful people.

A girl recognised me when I was walking down the street from this and we met for coffee, she lived around the corner from me!!!! We started to meet regularly and decided there must be other people out there who also sewed garments. This can be one problem, in that sewing is usually done in isolation.

So we put it out, for other people to join us and come for lunch. This started @sewingladieswholunch. We don’t actually sew during our meet ups, just talk and talk and talk. We can get between 10-20 ladies for lunch and more are joining us every month. We have chats between, always sewing related, wanting advice or just humorous ditties that only another sewer would understand.

From this, several of us started talking about Frocktails and the possibility of this in Newcastle. We formed a small ‘committee’ and Newcastle Australia Frocktails was born. We are about to hold our second one. @NewcastleAustraliaFrocktails The first one, we were very scared about selling tickets and what would happen if we needed to finance the event ourselves. However we sold 80 tickets in 8 days. This year we have sold 100 tickets in 3 days. I would encourage anyone to go to a Frocktail events, it is a special collection of special people all there with the same interest and language. It is the only place I know that I can touch anyone’s garment and they will consider it a compliment.