This orange and black stripped outfit once was a woollen jumper which I’ve turned into a jumper-skirt with sleeves as a neck scarf, teamed with a wool top.

It’s from my files because I was distracted at the Rural Press Club, catching up with journo mates such as Jane Paterson, Steve Gray, Gordon Collie, Teena Girdis, Neroli Roocke and meeting new ones Sue Neales from The Australian and Cassandra Hough from ABC Toowoomba, respectively runner-up and winner of the Excellence in Rural Reporting awards.

The link between the rural sector and what I’m doing here with Sew it Again is not immediately obvious until you think about where your clothes come from. They’re either made from natural farmed resources (wool, cotton, flax, hemp, alpaca etc) or man-made from petroleum, oil or gas.

After the Rural Press Club I went to Avid Reader bookshop in West End to pick up my newly-arrived copy of The Sustainable Fashion Handbook by Sandy Black (I just had to have my own copy), bumped into my dear friend Kay Pearse who is off to the US tomorrow, and then it was time to pick up Darcy from a city meeting and on to the airport to pick up son Max.

A fun day but no time at home feeding the baby – model Mabel needed a change of clothes! 

The creation analogy is relevant here. After the fabulous RPC lunch chaired by president Brendan Egan and excellent awards process managed by Edwina Close, I reflected on the gestation period to get to that point. The Rural Press Club was a defunct organisation in 2000 resurrected by a handful of believers – Gordon Collie, Jane Milburn (me), Chris Walker and Margie Milgate. After investing eight years of volunteer energy including three at the helm, in 2008 we appointed a paid executive Alan Ernst who in still doing a sterling job in that role today and I moved on to new challenges.

Continuing with the baby analogy, when I shifted from the farming side of food to the health side of food, I conceived the idea for a Health Media Club and managed two successful events before I lost that baby – the genetics were not quite right because of a non-alignment of values.

So here I am today, after study and reflection time, in the process of a 365-day gestation/creation of Textile Beat through this Sew it Again project. It sometimes feels lonely but I’m uplifted by small things – a new Twitter follower yesterday @craftofuse  – a fashion research project from@katetfletcher & @sustfash exploring how we use garments in resourceful and satisfying ways.  Thank you so much for noticing.

Must get on – have a special double-celebration lunch to prepare. With Valentine’s Day yesterday came the announcement from son Casey of his engagement to lovely Jenna – and it’s Max’s birthday lunch and he’s bringing his valentine Steph.

Today’s shortcut is from my bi-monthly Stitch in Time column published last year in Smart Farmer magazine which appears in Queensland Country Life. Trim the jumper into a skirt shape (curving in at waistline sides and scooping down at waistline) and add elastic at waist. Sew sleeves together into a scarf – the added brooch in this photo is from my late mother-in-law Edna otherwise known as Granny.