M is for Mum

I've written about my mum on this blog before but she's pretty special and worth writing about again.
I wrote about the quilt I made for her 80th birthday here and did a general post about her here


Mum will be 93 in September. She is currently living in an assisted living establishment in Sydney. She's been in the hostel since my father died in 2008.



Mum has always been someone who has kept busy. She learned to embroider whilst still a girl and continued to do so all her life when she had the opportunity. With 8 children including 6 under 8 when I was born she didn't always have much time. She said that being in hospital after the birth of the baby was one of the only opportunities she had to stitch for a good few years. And some of the supper cloths she fancy worked took several babies to finish. She made this doily for me when I was a teenager. I don't think I really appreciated it at the time but I still have it and love it. Its been stained from use but that means it got used!

She also did some fancy work for each of my kids. She made this for one of my boys. At the moment they aren't really of an age to appreciate it. One day when they have their own homes all nicely set up they might want it back... and I might give it back. .. note I said might

I asked her to embroider a cloth for me when my kids were little. I bought the printed cloth and the cottons and gave it to her. She sent it up to me, finished in a very short time and then was a bit disappointed in how long it took me to get the crotcheting around the edge done. I think she forgot how busy life could be with so many little ones. (I only had 4... but still....) I love this cloth. Again it has a few marks on it because it gets used... and I'm not the world's best launderer.

She used to make fancy dress costumes for us to wear to the annual fancy dress ball in our small community when we were young.

She even had a go at hand tinting old black and white photographs

She loved to write and completed a creative writing course whilst I was growing up and later she wrote a book on her mother's life as a young woman

Over the last few years she has been stitching things for me which I have been incorporating into quilts that I have given to her great grandchildren when they are born.

I have also made some of them into little wall quilts.

I love using the stitcheries she completes to make little gifts for important people. She's not going to be with us forever but her beautiful craft work will last into the future creating family legacies for generations to come.