Family Threads

Sunday Blog 208 - 9th November 2025

My mother was a diarist. At the end of the day she sat at the kitchen table or perhaps on her comfortable armchair with her meal tray as a desk. She’d write about the intricate doings of each day in her week-to-a-page diary. What letters had arrived, phone calls given and received, trips to the shop, items of note purchased, sewing and craft projects undertaken, progressed or finished.

‘I’ve just got to write the exciting story of my life,’ she would quip at night. The joke was that her diaries were never meant to be exciting. In fact, when a drama did occur, it too would be folded into the minutiae of the day, its sting or power suffocated in the anodyne crush of everyday events.

Mum died in 2024, just a few months short of her ninety-eighth birthday. Like many women of her generation, she sewed and knitted many of our clothes to save money. Back in the day, before clothing became pitiably cheap.

This November she would have been 99. To honour her birthday, one of my sisters, Gay Taylor has put together an exhibition called Family Threads. The work that women like our Mum did is so often overlooked and forgotten. This exhibition honours her life and work, the exciting story of her life which wrapped so many of us up with kindness, love and stability. It includes handmade garments, household linens and heirloom textiles crafted by women across generations but with a particular focus on our beautiful Mum.

For those of you in Perth, the exhibition will be open from Monday 10th-Saturday 15th November from 10am until 4pm at Osborne Park Uniting Church, 164 Edward Street Osborne Park. Just drop in during those hours.