Anne is my aunt, but being only 10 years older than me I see her as my age. I am named after Anne but have another family addition at the front! As a young girl I always thought Anne was very cool and groovy. The different lettering is to represent how I never saw Anne as boring, and I remember she always dressed with flair. I think of daisies when I think of Anne, she had dresses, stickers, hats and all manner of things with daisies on them, I have added one at the end of her name.

Rua was born in 1915 and spent her first 40 years living and working on sheep stations. At the age of 40 she married a run holder and took on the role of running a house, having to learn to cook and feed all the farm workers. Unable to have children, they ended up adopting 4 and life became even busier. She made all their clothes. Knitted jerseys, baby blankets. Crocheted rugs. Put in huge vegetable and flower gardens. All hours of the day were used up. I'm proud to say that Rua was my mother and a truly remarkable woman. 

Isabella was my Grandmother who emigrated to New Zealand from Scotland. She arrived in Dunedin in the early 1880s. She married and raised four children. She was a tiny woman who had strong beliefs, was resourceful and was a suffragette. I am very proud of the stand she took on the behalf of women and have tried to live up to that in my life. Women can do anything. Isabella was accepting of all people. An example of this was when food was rationed during WW2 and no one could get rice and only limited amounts of sugar, the local Chinese green grocer always had rice for my grandmother. She had a sad life in many ways. She lost a son in the Battle of the Somme in WW1 and also her husband close to the same time. She sold her home to pay for another son to take his war bride back to the UK and then had to live with her daughter. During this time she was very involved caring for her grandson, who had a significant physical disability, feeding him and teaching him how to walk and take care of his personal needs. Right up until her death at 85 if she saw an outfit she liked she would draft the pattern from memory and make one for herself. She taught me a little poem when I was 7…………Today I will be happy, Today I will be glad, I’ll try to make today, The best day I have had. This became such a gift, understanding how she coped and helping me so much to cope with some things in my life. An inspirational woman my grandmother.

Anne, my grandmother and namesake is a living inspiration for me. Her kindness & empathy are something I aspire to match and if I could live as her shadow or half the woman she is I would live a proud life.
Love you Gran.

Issy is what most of us call my mother. A strong woman who was widowed in 1965 and was left with a three year old and a new born baby. Mum through necessity knitted my jerseys and sewed many of my outfits. The fabrics were always bold and the pattern striking. This I am sure has influenced my love of colour and pattern in me. I have added a flower and cherries because mum still gardens today, and it is an interest we share, and my love of cherries stems from mum always having them in the summer holidays when we were children. Summer holidays were always fun with mum. Issy, short for Isabell.

My mother can live proud, as she has faced life’s blows and taken them standing tall. A fiercely independent woman, Wendy has set standards that my sister and I would be silly to not take note of and follow. My mum is loyal to those she holds dear to near fault but that just solidified her image of a true friend and mother.
Love you mum

Mary was my Grandmother who lost her mother when she was two and who had to endure a horrible relationship with a stepmother until she could leave home and worked for the local doctor’s wife who treated her with respect and kindness. She lived most of her life in Sutton in Central Otago and had five children and brought up two nephews as well. Her husband didn’t keep good health and Mary had to hand milk cows, separate the cream from the milk and had a large flock of hens. The eggs and cream were sent to Dunedin on the train. As well she baked, preserved and made jam: nothing was wasted. Mary knitted, sewed, did beautiful embroidery and crochet work. Her eldest daughter had to leave school aged 12 to take over the kitchen and cleaning duties as there were a lot of mouths to feed. Mary taught me....... ‘You reap what you sow’ and ‘Smile and the world smiles with you, weep and you weep alone.’ I have never forgotten those. ‘A stitch in time saves nine’ has not had the same impact! Mary taught me a strong work ethic, loyalty, patience and gave me no-nonsense unconditional love.

Olive was my aunt. She was a ‘land girl’ during WWII and worked her parents’ farm. She milked cows, tended sheep, rode horses, raised pigs and was an amazing gardener of both vegetables and flowers. She never married and looked after her mother until her death, and then looked after my mother. She lived a life of giving to others. She was an active member of women’s groups like The Women’s Institute and The Women’s Division of Federated Farmers. She belonged to the Arts and Crafts movement and did beautiful embroidery and knitting. I have her scrapbooks of the most amazing knitting patterns. She played tennis, played the piano and sang in local musical productions. This woman, I know, would have loved to have had her own partner, her own home and her own children. She never did but she was positive, accepting and always showed a happy disposition. Aunty Olive was another inspirational in my life.

Ada is my Grandmother. After leaving school at 12 to help her mother cook and care for her siblings and cousins who lived with them in Middlemarch, her spare time was spent doing crafts. Adelaide Macdougall (née Terry) would perfect many crafts, such was her skill she would judge cooking at the Otago A&P Show, baked and iced wedding cakes, stitched, tatted, knitted, sewed, painted, did pewter, leather and shell work, in fact the extent of her involvement is truly impressive. My fondest memories of Grandma are sitting on holiday as she sketched scenes around Central Otago, her full cake tins and her constant striving for improving her skills by attending courses constantly, right up until her latter years. My work for her includes some of her tatting.

Claudia is our mother. While we were growing up, she modelled spending time, generosity, faithfulness and handmade as ways to love those who are dear to you; qualities we continue to seek and reflect in our relationships with the ones we love. She is the person who taught us to make and sew, who made all of our clothes growing up, and who fostered in each of us the value and beauty of items made with care by hand whilst allowing us to grow into our own diverse creative expressions. As adults we are still people who make things, and as sisters we each contributed to this stitching as a collaborative way of honouring her.

I haven’t done embroidery in ages. The last project I remember was 15 years ago. But when I learned about this project I immediately knew I had to make a patch for my dissertation advisor. Working with her was frustrating at times, but I always appreciated how she supported my ideas (even the outrageous ones) and I’ll always be grateful to her for opening my eyes to ways of more inclusive thinking and working. I’m glad I got to tell her how much that meant to me the last time I saw her because she died unexpectedly in April 2020.

Penelope is my Mother who gave up her dream of being a writer/journalist when her father refused to pay for her to attend university unless she studied teaching or nursing. She joined the British Army instead. At 21 she left everything in England to travel to Malaysia to marry my father who she had met in Australia when they were stationed together in Adelaide. She gave up the Army to marry. She gave birth to me while my father was with the Australian Airforce in Vietnam, solo parenting three children until my father’s return. She attempted many times to study & write but life always got in the way. She was widowed at 42 and left to steer the family ship solo again. As a teenager I often made for stormy waters, but she guided us both through. I admire my mother’s tenacity (aka bloody mindedness), fierce independence, unspoken love and support & witty way with words & I acknowledge & appreciate the many things she has given up.

Abigail is my Daughter. She is 13 and I have embroidered 13 little shoots around her name to represent both her age and (just some) of the possible opportunities’ I know life has to offer her. She makes me laugh and keeps me grounded, reminds me to have fun and inspires me to keep finding creative ways to do things & get things done. She drives me to seek answers to all kinds of questions from the mundane to the sublime. We share a love for observing (researching) and appreciating the extraordinary in the everyday. We see, we create & we draw together and make up silly songs about our big beautiful ginger cat every single day we are together. She also keeps my hands warm.

Robyn is my mum. Magnificent, uncoordinated and meaningful. From songs about our awfully fluffy cat that is Bosch, to dreaming up stories that we spin at night, my mum has always been there for me. She inspires me to see beauty in the world we live in and to accept all our differences, which I have displayed in my embroidery. I chose to depict a native yellow Robin, a lesser known bird in the all mighty flock of Australian Wildlife. The Robin sounds both like my mum’s name and represents a bird she loves. I love her unconditionally and I hope that we keep singing our songs, telling our stories and being there for each other because she is Magnificent, uncoordinated and most of all, Meaningful.

Pamela Edith Branson Arnold is my mother, each stitch I made in this embroidery has been made with, and to represent, love like no other.

Florence Emma Macpherson was my wonderful mother – a skilled dressmaker, and in her later years, made many costumes for the Hurstville Light Opera Company. Hence my love of embroidery and textiles. Amongst other flowers, lilac was my mother’s favourite, which is the flower represented on her name.

Amy was my maternal grandmother. Words that come to mind when thinking of her are strength, love, compassion, discipline, “good manners”. Also known for her good food. She had a hard life raising 9 kids in Western NSW. Not only 9 of her own but helped raise the younger members of my father’s family when my paternal grandfather was widowed & never remarried. A second mother to them and they loved her. She and Joe, (my grandfather) eventually moved to Sydney where she cared for him, her elderly parents & 6 children. The neighbours came to rely on her as well. She was a devil on ‘cracker’ night and loved a double bunger! Her 17 grandchildren idolised her & spoke lovingly of her, she loved good fun, always dressed a bit like the Queen mother when she went to “town” in her flowery outfits, hat & gloves. She always wore a corset! There were times when lack of money and exhaustion must have almost overwhelmed her, but she never seemed to show it.

Vicky is Anne & Colin’s younger daughter, lifelong learner of te reo, ukulele, retired teacher and advocate for women’s causes.

I always had a close but complex relationship with my mother Rena(te). She supported me even though it was clear that it would ‘remove’ me from being near her. Rena just turned 90 during the pandemic. Sadly I could not be with her to celebrate this wonderful day, her being in Germany and me in Australia makes this time super testing for us. Her tenacity and resilience though still amazes me, living on her own in isolation at 90 years of age is no easy feat.

There were three sisters in the Alexander family: Heather, Laurel, and Virginia. All flowers. The sisters were close and supported each other through many tough times. During the depression, their Mum, Lily, would bake cakes and the girls would take to the streets to sell them.

Laurel was my mother’s aunt and like a second mother to her. So to me, she was like a second grandmother. She loved the theatre and performed with her cousin Ken Brodziac when they were young. Later in life, she and her friend Irene put on shows for the ‘oldies’ who lived in their retirement hostel. She had a life of many ups and downs. When her divorce finally came through in her 70s, she went out and bought red lingerie and had her hair done to celebrate!

Heather was my mother’s mother. I didn’t know her very well, I only remember her vaguely from when I was a child. She was very kind and the family legend goes she ‘tamed’ my grandfather Jim, who was wild and reckless when he was young.Heather was my mother’s mother. I didn’t know her very well, I only remember her vaguely from when I was a child. She was very kind and the family legend goes she ‘tamed’ my grandfather Jim, who was wild and reckless when he was young. I chose her because there is something intangible and nameless that passes from mother to daughter, mother to daughter. It’s a soft as touch, and hums somewhere in the distance of your being. I didn’t have to know her very well. She is still singing in my blood.

Embroidered on a patch from one of her favourite linen shirts, a Forget-Me-Not, for my mother Val. I think of her every day.

She was a naturally gifted and extraordinary florist, expressing emotion, beauty, and love in all her work.

There were always fresh flowers in our home. Like her mother, she loved the garden, the vision she had for it, her hands in the soil. A place of great joy, and of solace.

She imparted in all five of us a love of nature- to see and feel the beauty and find peace and strength in uncertain times.

Kathleen is my mum's name. She passed away at 83 just 4 years ago. I have embroidered her name on a patch made up of 2 pieces of fabric. The white background is from a t-shirt of my son/her grandson (one of her 12 much loved grandchildren). The dark blue gros-grain ribbon is a section of her hat band from her time at boarding school at Star Of The Sea in Gardenvale, Melbourne.

She used to describe her time there with some fondness but also described her powerful homesickness when she first arrived there at 12 yrs from her home in a very sleepy pocket if north east Victoria. The independence she gained stood her in good stead for her chosen career (and one she very much loved) as a nurse.

Kathleen was a mother of 7, the eldest of whom was a daughter she gave birth to unwed and ,as was a sadly common choice in those times, she gave up for adoption. She went on to have 6 children including me when she married my father.

My mum did not have an easy life. She faced the relinquishing of a baby daughter, a marriage to a difficult man and raising a large family with limited resources. But Kathleen was a kind and loving woman who was generous with her time and whatever she had to share with people. She was resourceful, hard-working and very loving.

She loved being a nurse and the independence it offered her to be a woman with her own income and skills and recognition beyond the realm of housework.

I feel so lucky to have been raised by a woman who was so unwavering in her love and delight for her family no matter what.