Tag Archives: Chrissy Maguire

Sew 102 – Cause for celebration

upcycled skirt top and beltLearning 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:

Jane Milburn and Casey Milburn circa 1992“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. Continue reading →

Sew 72 – Upending banana drama

banana drama shirts

These black t-shirts are 10-years old and the screen-printing is as good as the day it was created for the Save the Aussie Banana awareness campaign I ran with the Australian industry.

Australia is the only Western country with a commercial banana industry and is relatively free of the world’s worst pests and diseases. It was on these grounds that Tully banana grower Len Collins led the industry campaign against Philippines banana imports.

We used creative ways to raise public awareness via a big banana giveaway at Sydney’s Royal Easter Show and a Cowboys’ rugby league home game in Townsville – see photo below right with a Cowboys’ fan, Benny Banana and Jane Milburn, taken by my friend Chrissy Maguire in 2004.

After an extended import risk analysis by Australian authorities, the quarantine bar was set high to prevent disease incursions (such as black sigatoka, moko, bunchy top, freckle) and imports have not proceeded on this basis.

That was ages ago and now I’ve moved on to an ecological health campaign of my own making, demonstrating upcycling and resewing existing natural fibre clothing for pleasure, reward and sustainability.  Continue reading →