Little Big Mob's New Home

We've moved into a rather beautiful new home. In true Womble style, we moved into a fully furnished house, and moved two households at the same time, and haven't quite fully unpacked, but for the first time in our adult lives, we're living in a real first world home. With gadgets and baking tools and all sorts of kitchen implements I haven't seen since childhood. And all sorts of other luxuries. We've fully Wombled Out.

I've been saying for a while now that I don't really know if Intentional Communities really work from what I've seen and experienced, but Unintentional Communities just might! And it seems we've unintentionally landed in one. From all of our collective experiences, both those living here when we got here and us......we're all being very aware of clear communication and honesty. And in our short time here, the omens are all good.

There's ample room for all of us, in a beautiful hundred year old home that used to be a schoolhouse, with stained glass windows, slate floors, and the most luxury we've lived in, in our entire relationship together. Which is coming up to 17 years now! And for the first time in 15 years, we have our own room. A Parents Retreat even!! Our own little space at the top of the stairs, where little boys who need to cuddle up in the middle of the night still have a place, but we're mostly sleeping up here on our own. Oh. My.

I made a massive ball of rope from selvedges cut by a seamstress friend, and busily tried to work out what to make with it. It's the biggest ball of anything I've ever made. I tried to turn it into a swing, but it was too stretchy, then a net above our bed, but I've since decided to turn it into a bouncy room........stay tuned.

I also wove this rug with them. As we've moved in close to Blue Knob Farmers Market, I've been going down there every saturday to play in various ways with fibres, and on the first saturday I wove this rug, from start to finish. I threw out a whimsical invitation to the beautiful and talented Pascal to come and have a Knit & Bitch with me, and the next week, I was surprised to see these gorgeous people under the stage, waiting to take me up on my offer! The following photos are taken by A Woman With A Camera, Marie Therese.

Pascal is the partner of Eric The Embroiderer, who is featured in this gorgeous little video made by a new friend of mine, Michelle Eabry. Eric has since turned up to play with fibres whenever he can. Embroidering a pomegranate that I can't wait to see finished, and bringing in his hand treadled sewing machine.

And the man behind Pascal in the photo above Eric's video, is the incredibly talented international artist Lae Oldmeadow, who is also playing with ideas with us about shelters and sculptures and working fibres in new ways. Do yourself a favour and have a look at Lae's webpage.

But back to the Stitch & Bitch, which we ended up deciding to call Stitch & Enrich (cause no bitching was happening there) at Blue Knob Market, it's become a growing scene for local fibre and sustainability enthusiasts, interested in the Makers or Bespoke scene. These following photos are also taken by Marie Therese.

This is Granny Breathweaver, who started and continues to run the Weave and Mend Basketry Festival every year in Nimbin. This year it will be at Djanbung Gardens on Cecil Street, from the 30th of September, till the 2nd of October. You can check out more details here.

But back to our beautiful new home......we're loving living here, and can stay for as long as we want, so our worries about housing have finally ceased, and we have more energy for community. But more about that next time. I'm going to leave you with a video I took one night shortly after we moved into our new home, and all the kids were errupting with joy and energy right after dinner, while Currawong was drumming to some wicked High Tech Minimal, which was the soundtrack to a train journey video. As you do :)

How's that for an honest little peek into the chaos of a big family going off after dinner?! There's often someone who's not happy with what's going on, and this night it was Max's night off. Deeply upset about the bowl he was being given for dessert, he had a melt down into bed for the night. There's always something going on in a family of 9, and it teaches me more than anything about surrender, paradox, and more often than not, the pure harmony that comes from said chaos.