Tag Archives: Georgie Somerset

Sew 102 – Cause for celebration

upcycled skirt top and beltLearning from the experience, knowledge, ideas and skills of others helps us navigate the thrills and spills of life.

As a parent, I’ve passed on what I know to three offspring and it is exciting today to be celebrating our son Casey and his fiancée Jenna Moir’s engagement at the Gold Coast – thrilled to have another woman joining our family. (see nostalgia photo of Casey and I below)

One of my favourite women Georgie Somerset brought my attention to a recent Women’s Agenda post that shared key lessons from successful women to help at work, at home and in life. Great wisdom in these quotes:

Jane Milburn and Casey Milburn circa 1992“Done is better than perfect. I have tried to embrace this motto and let go of unattainable standards. Aiming for perfection causes frustration at best and paralysis at worst.”  Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In

“The way we’ve defined success is no longer sustainable for human beings or for societies. To live the lives we truly want and deserve, and not just the lives we settle for, we need a Third Metric, a third measure of success that goes beyond the two metrics of money and power, and consists of four pillars: well-being, wisdom, wonder and giving.”  Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington in Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder.  I wrote about Beyond Power and Money earlier this year. Continue reading →

Sew 86 – Valuing others’ work

upcycled wool and linen

Respecting time, effort and resources of others’ creations is part of today’s upcycle which includes the waistband of a knitted garment now featuring as a loose collar.

Thinking of others is key to the inspiring story told at the Rural Press Club by Danielle Crismani about her leadership journey during the 2011 Queensland floods when a simple act of baking muffins for volunteers sparked an outpouring of baked relief at this time of community crisis.

By giving to others Danielle has achieved many things, including being able to opening dispense her recipe for overcoming depression – which is show gratitude, sleep, be kind to yourself and help others. There were many great pearls of wisdom in Danielle’s speech, which you can get a taste of by reading ABC Landline Pip Courtney’s twitter feed.  Continue reading →

Sew 12 – Adventure in imagination

Cotton skirt with silk trimsThis skirt once was a plain but well-made cotton drill skirt which was going begging so I gave it a new lease on life by adding assorted silk and linen stripes using waste fabric.

I get a fantastic sense of satisfaction from making something out of not much, living a more creative and meaningful existence. Those words are straight out of the mouth of Kevin McCloud in his Seaside Shack series on ABC1.

Kevin said making something fresh out of not much is rather fun. Upcycling is an adventure into our imagination – and the experience of making things is powerful and enriching.

“The pleasure is in the making and doing, not buying and consuming,” Kevin said. “Making things with your hands, you feel like you have done something, achieved something.”

“The best kind of recycling is when you take things and transform them into something special that looks like it is really expensive.”

While Kevin’s design challenge is adapting reclaimed and upcycled building materials to a new use – mine is to adapt, reuse and upcycle discarded clothing.

This skirt is for my friend Georgie Somerset. We cropped the old skirt to a length that suited her, then I cut up a silk top (forgot to photograph it) and used the frill as the new skirt hem and a brooch. Then to the skirt front, I sewed various strips gleaned from my silk off-cuts box and other oddments of tablecloth and ribbon.

Sew 12 web