What I didn't see at the time
The zip up sewing tool case is full of pockets and slots, which carry all the small tools of trade a fabric artist away from home might wish to have with them. I have a similar carrier for the tech tools which allow me to get into computers, fix cables, and extract tight parts. Mine is cheap, mass produced black plastic, with one-size-fits-all elastic loops that don't fit most things. But what my partner has created is a work of art, zipped transparent mesh or vinyl pockets made to size, and other custom sized fabric pockets for tucking in various tools, not all of which I can identify.
And the fabric! Beautiful colours and patterns; the unerring eye of an artist has been at work. This is not merely a sewing case. This is an art piece. Her first project which I remember was a patchwork picnic blanket which has been followed by a succession of wedding quilts, banners, altar falls, quilted jackets, and bags of all description--and more.
In Tennant Creek, I took Wendy and our baby daughter out to the airport for the flight back to Alice Springs, watched Connair struggling to start an ancient plane, and wondered if I would ever see them again as it sputtered out onto the strip, still belching black smoke. Then I drove back into town, and packed everything we had into our truck for the long drive south. I wrapped a couple of kulata and miru, and some pitis, in that picnic blanket. By the time I got back to the family farm, the quartz tips on the woomeras had cut through the quilt.
The spears and pitis had been given to us, along with batiks, when we left Ernabella. My grandfather also gave me a circular lump of spinifex resin. It's used to repair cracks in pitis, and to help cement the quartz tips on a spear or woomera into place; a very effective ancient version of Araldite. I still have it, about 8 centimetres across, perfectly shaped, two centimetres thick in the middle; a gift of esteem which I could not price in the crass economy of the Australian dollar. An object freighted with family, obligation, thanks, and regard, which I did not see at the time. In its own way as beautiful as the quilts and wall hangings which colour our house.
His great grandson was nick-named Mouse. We had stood considering how to fix a bore one frosty morning. Mouse was there, 3 years old, not bothering with clothes, gnawing on a malu joint. He asked me if I needed to share some of it, showing the same courtesy as his grandfather. I said I'd had plenty of breakfast, but thanks. And not really seeing what was being offered was much more than cold meat.
I regret not seeing the beauty of things, and of people. Perhaps one of the gifts of age is the ability to remember, and begin to see and be grateful.
Andrea (2026)
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