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They Sought Refuge

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Finally complete after many hours stitching with both hand and machine. And now submitted for the Moreland Summer Show – Factivism at Counihan Gallery.  Fingers crossed 🙂

This work represents the plight of refugees and asylum seekers who are locked up, with no freedom, inside detention centres due to our two major political parties and the media lying about the facts or putting spin on them using statements like: illegal maritime arrivalOperation Sovereign Borders, illegal maritime arrival.

TheySoughtRefuge2Who are ‘boat people’? They are asylum seekers who arrive without a valid visa or other authorization seeking protection because they fear persecution in their home country

Is Australia obligated to help them? Yes. Australia has a legal obligation to assist as we signed the Refugee Convention.

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The Slow Clothing Project

Every day, we eat and we dress. We have become conscious of our food, it is time to become more conscious of our clothing.Tamara-making-1024x610

I love the Slow Clothing project instigated by Jane Milburn at Textile Beat textilebeat.com . The project is a social enterprise inspiring a creative approach to the way we dress, through slow clothing. ‘We believe in ethical, sustainable choices that don’t harm people or the planet. We want to know the story about where clothing comes from and we believe in care and repair, refashion and restyle of existing clothing using old-fashioned home-sewing skills.’

I have contributed to this project.  http://textilebeat.com/a-meditative-process-tamara-russell/

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Sew You Want to Sew

I have had a love affair with sewing for more years than I like to admit to!  My mother was a great sewer who sewed and knitted our clothes as children and taught me on her old Anchor machine, which I still have and still sews brilliantly.  I purchased my first very basic Husqvarna 3610 when I was 16 on which I sewed my clothes either from a pattern or to my designs for years.imgres-2

I upgraded to a second hand Husqvarna Viking 400 in my 30’s and started sewing my children’s clothes.  I spent hours when the girls were at school enjoying creating home wares in the form of curtains, cushions, bedding, and decorative objects for our home and also began to play with freehand embroidery on this machine.  imgres-3

In my 40’s I purchased a trusty old Bernina 1230 from a stitcher who was moving into age care and couldn’t take it with her.  This has become my first choice now for my freehand embroidery with my wonderful Viking still being used for clothes and home wares.  It is fantastic to now have a studio where I can have both machines and my overlocker, a Babylock Enlighten set up and ready to sew all the time.  imgres-4

If you are thinking about starting to sew I recently found these two articles by   titled Sew you want to learn to sewAll about sewing machines and Fabric-patterns-and-resources. They contain great information for anyone starting out.  Give sewing a go it is so rewarding to be able to make clothes, accessories and homewares from scratch or to up-cycle charity finds into your own style and even create your own art! And you can often pick up good machines to start you on your way from charity shops or on gumtree very cheaply.

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40×40 on now at Brunswick Street Gallery

#BrunswickStreetGallery 40×40 Show. My work is in the centre picture.#Driftwood #SurfFlags and #SurfsUp. The show is on till the 2nd week of January so pop by and have a look. Some amazing work. #Fitzroy #outinmelbourne #art#thingstodo #Christmasshopping#karhina.com #textiles #contemporaryart

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Brunswick Flea Market

The flea market descends on Howler’s carpark once a month on Sunday, with a sea of vintage, vinyl, handmade, ‘garage sale goods’, flowers, good coffee and baked treat stalls. You can fuel up further at the food trucks and Howler’s trading as normal to slake a shopping thirst. The next markets are in 2016 on:

  • January 10th
  • February 14th
  • March 13th

See http://brunswickflea.com/ for more information.

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