Learning from the experience, knowledge, ideas and skills of others helps us navigate the thrills and spills of life.

As a parent, I’ve passed on what I know to three offspring and it is exciting today to be celebrating our son Casey and his fiancée Jenna Moir’s engagement at the Gold Coast – thrilled to have another woman joining our family. (see nostalgia photo of Casey and I below)

One of my favourite women Georgie Somerset brought my attention to a recent Women’s Agenda post that shared key lessons from successful women to help at work, at home and in life. Great wisdom in these quotes:

“Done is better than perfect. I have tried to embrace this motto and let go of unattainable standards. Aiming for perfection causes frustration at best and paralysis at worst.”  Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In

“The way we’ve defined success is no longer sustainable for human beings or for societies. To live the lives we truly want and deserve, and not just the lives we settle for, we need a Third Metric, a third measure of success that goes beyond the two metrics of money and power, and consists of four pillars: well-being, wisdom, wonder and giving.”  Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington in Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder.  I wrote about Beyond Power and Money earlier this year.

“My unsolicited advice to women in the workplace is this. When faced with sexism, or ageism, or lookism, or even really aggressive Buddhism, ask yourself the following question: “Is this person in between me and what I want to do?” If the answer is no, ignore it and move on. Your energy is better used doing your work and outpacing people that way. Then, when you’re in charge, don’t hire the people who were jerky to you.” Writer and actress Tina Fey in Bossypants

“We need to understand that there is no formula for how women should lead their lives. That is why we must respect the choices that each woman makes for herself and her family. Every woman deserves the chance to realize her God-given potential.” Hillary Clinton in her 1996 book It Takes a Village:

My personal choice this year is to immerse in upcycling for eco-leadership. From many sources, I’m distilling information and ideas into the Sew it Again project to demonstrate, through actions, how we can utilise and value existing natural fibre clothing and found stuff to extend its life rather than buy new.

Sew 102 is a grey skirt created from two op-shop ones.  A straight cotton-lycra skirt is revived with a flared panel cut from the bottom of cotton-denim skirt. I cut the denim skirt at a point where the circumference was slightly larger than the lycra, marked them each in quarters with pins, then stretched and sewed them together with zigzag. The linen top I made ages ago but revived with a clip at the back neck (which had always flopped, because Velcro hadn’t quite done the job). I gathered this belt buckle from a vintage shop in New York during a trip to North America (visiting Casey while studying at McGill in Montreal).  I love its patina and thistle markings, and had my local boot maker attach it to a piece of croc leather from Mick’s Whips.

Anyway … here’s to Casey and Jenna … and I’m hoping to be as fine a mother-in-law as Edna Milburn was to me with never a harsh word spoken. The photo above (note fabric-painted t-shirt which was my craft of choice then) on the beach in Townsville takes me back to those happy busy days with young children. Thanks to photographer Chrissy Maqurie for capturing that moment.