I grew up at the Roseworthy Agricultural College Campus. Dad was a wheat breeder and he bred different varieties of wheat. I went to Roseworthy as a Uni student. In 1994 I moved to Cleve as I had won a position with PIRSA. I met my husband Brock at the Minnipa Agricultural Centre Fields Day in late 1995. Brock was a merchandise manager at the Elders Wudinna Branch at the time. We got married in 1998 and I moved to Wudinna and worked at Minnipa Agricultural Centre. In 2000 my contract was coming to an end and Brock wanted a change from Elders. As I was pregnant with Jacob, we decided it was time for a change. Brock applied and won the manager position at Carrs Seeds and that’s how we ended up in Cummins.

A great love of mine is patchwork & quilting. I learnt basic sewing in high school in Home Ec. I loved it so much that mum bought me a sewing machine for my 16th birthday and I still have it! My first patchwork lesson was in the early 90s. It was a cushion made by hand and my mum still has it today.From there I went housesitting in Gawler which is where I started making my first quilt all by hand. I still have it unfinished, it’s terrible! I learnt the hard way from the start.

When I was in Cleve from 1994 onwards, I started patchworking with my friend Marg. We sewed regularly even though we both worked full time. After work and weekends. We still have a strong friendship today and still sew together. I dabbled a little bit when I lived in Wudinna but we were busy working and had the farm at Lock to work on at weekends.

When I moved to Cummins, I knew no one. I was a bit apprehensive to move to Cummins because out of all the towns on EP I didn’t know anyone. Brock however had made connections through football and work and it wasn’t as big of an unknown for him. I was heavily pregnant with Jacob, we got involved in Ramblers and Brock played footy. Once Jacob was born, I got out and about a bit more. I got to know Meredith, Jeannie and Midge through Ramblers and we soon realised that we had a common creative interest. We started sewing together and taking it in turns hosting sewing sessions at each other’s houses. Coincidently Meredith, myself and Jeannie were all pregnant at the same time. Nikita, Lachlan and Joseph are a couple of months apart in age and have spent a lot of their early years around each other. One of our first times we got together to sew we went to Jeannie’s house. The town had no power from a storm and it was freezing. It was so cold. Jeannie had the wood fire going. I still remember how freezing cold it was.

In the winter after the January 2005 fires, Jeannie had been approached by a group of ladies in Wanilla who had sourced some recovery funding. They wanted Jeannie to do some patchwork lessons with them as many women were still feeling the traumatic effects of the fires and some had even lost everything. It was a way of connecting and supporting each other. So, Jeannie, Meredith and I put together a table runner kit which Jeannie designed. We drove to Tumby Bay to pick out material and gave the ladies an option of 3 different colour ways.

Originally it was supposed to be a 6-week block, but the ladies enjoyed it so much that after the 6 weeks they wanted to continue. The Recovery Centre paid for more sessions and overall, we had 10 - 12 ladies most sessions. In the second block, we designed a wall hanging which was paid for with left over grant money. The connection and friendship that was made was so special. The grant money paid for our kids to be babysat while we ran the sessions. One lady had lost everything in the fires and had been attending the classes. The 3 of us were in regular contact with The Recovery Centre and Jane Smith. She would put aside items she thought were appropriate for the group which included a sewing machine. We knew exactly who to give that to. When we gave the sewing machine to the lady she was so overwhelmed by the generosity of the donation. It was so special for us to be able to do this for her. We sewed on and off and on for about 12 months and we concluded with a successful exhibition at the Anglican Church in Cummins with several other artists. It was a very emotional night and we were very proud of the Wanilla ladies’ projects. As our kids became school age, we all got busy with life and going back to work, but we still connected regularly.

I was sewing the day Brock passed away. I was making a bag for my mum’s birthday which was a few days later. In that first 12 months of grief, I couldn’t sew. I couldn’t sit and concentrate. I had to go back to work and get my head around that. I did some small bits of hand sewing but anything big was just too hard. I spoke to a friend who had lost her mum and she said it was completely natural to feel like this. When I was ready to get back in to it, life had become very different. Work, kids, sporting and other commitments took priority. Jeannie and Meredith were working, and all our lives had changed a bit. I did bits and pieces here and there.

My silver lining of COVID was getting back into sewing. In about July/August 2020 I found my way back to the Cummins Stitchers. It was connection and support I had needed, and the opportunity appeared. In 2021 it became even more important to have this group as I became an empty nester. I knew it was coming but I wasn’t ready for what it would actually feel like. My sleep pattern changed. I had insomnia. I couldn’t work out what was wrong. About a week after I got home after dropping Nikita to Adelaide I left a friend’s 50th birthday party early. I wasn’t feeling right. I didn’t want to socialise so I went home. After talking to friends and a Doctor I realised that my empty nest syndrome was more complicated than those of my coupled friends. After Brock passed I had grieved what we had lost as a family and the process of suicide. But I hadn’t actually grieved for myself and what I lost as the surviving partner.

I was emotionally overwhelmed. I had questions buzzing around my head like; where do I fit? What is my life now? Seeing the doctor and having conversations with friends and working through it with different people has helped me acknowledge the feelings I had and focus on the positives. I still have my various stitching friends new & old and they are all so important in my life now.