WE are Wyndham Vale
On the same day that the Wyndham Weekly reported I was to be the new Artist in Residence at Iramoo, Delfin Lend Lease announced a new $1B property development on the fringes of Wyndham Vale. This yet to be publicly named development will house up to 12,000 people within 4000 dwellings. According to media reports (but surprisingly nothing on Delfin Lend Lease’s website) there are plans for four schools, community, sport and recreation facilities, open space with lakes and waterways, and a shopping centre.
Like all master planned developments, this estate will be designed and branded with a specific theme(s) of housing and will be sold in staged releases of house and land packages.
Since then yet another large development has been announced for the area. Raising even more questions about the pressures all this rapid development is going to place on already stressed infrastructure.
Far too often the values and long term goals of existing communities are left out of the design and planning processes. While councils may develop long term goals for their area, in areas of rapid growth it seems clear to me that corporate developers have much more power and control over the social and environmental development than the community or local government. Add on top the differing levels of decision making responsibilities between local and state government, it does all get a bit confusing for local people who do want to participate in planning processes. I can’t speak for the Wyndham Vale community because I don’t know the specific history of the relationships between the council/state government and the developers operating in the area. But I do know that of the many conversations I’ve had with locals about the history of the evolution of Wyndham Vale, these issues seem to be very much at play here.
Reflecting on these issues, I would like to present the major project for my residency, “WE are Wyndham Vale”.
I invite all residents of Wyndham Vale to contribute their future visions and exciting ideas for the area. All of the submissions are to be incorporated into a large visual wall map of the area. The map will then be embroidered for exhibition, alongside the submissions. Participation is easy, simply download the submission form, print it out, fill it in and email or post it in or drop it off at one of the drop boxes around Wyndham by the end of 8th of July (details on the form).
Once all the submissions are collected and the design is collated, I will be holding public stitching sessions for people to get involved in the making of the map. You can indicate if you want to be involved in this part of the project on the contribution form.
My hope is for a community vision of the priorities local residents hold important for the future of this area. The map will be framed and kept on display in the Iramoo Community Centre.
So please download the contribution form by clicking the get involved button below and get thinking about what YOU see Wyndham Vale’s future looking like.
Finally a special big thanks to the Iramoo Community Centre and Wyndham Council for getting behind this unique project.
Looking forward to seeing your ideas!
xox
Rayna
click the button above to download the submission form (.pdf 61kb)
Hoopdaloopdahoop: A Radical Cross Stitch invention!
I don’t know about you mob, but whilst this portrait of Madame de Pompadour sitting upright at her Tambour frame is fabulous, it’s not quite what you would see if you bowled into my house and caught me stitching. Rather, you’re more likely to find me slouching on the couch or hanging on a seat outside watching the kids run around. And I don’t ever get much time to stitch, I just grab 10 minute sessions here and there between nappies, feeding kids, tidying up the never ending mess and keeping the garden ticking along.
So I have recently begun a pretty major project which involves a piece of cloth which is 1.2 x 1.4 metres in size. I have a table tapestry frame, beautifully hacked by my dad and it’s over a metre wide so I can get a massive bit of fabric on it. But it’s not terribly easy to move around and it really does need a table which is not terribly convenient in our lounge. So I’ve been humming and aahing over a little solution, asked around the interwebs a bit and I think I’ve invented something! If anyone has seen anything like this let me know! If I haven’t invented it, at least I gave it a great name 
The problem with working a large piece of fabric on a hoop is that you have to put the fabric somewhere. I know people fold up the edges and clip it but it still means a lot of handling of the fabric and that’s always something to minimise. I thought to myself, what about stuffing it in a bag? That could work, but then hanging onto the bag as well as the hoop could get annoying. Then Valerie mentioned on our Facebook Page that she knew a lady who put it in a pillowcase. Ooh that’s clever! Nice and soft too.
Then a little spark kicked in my brain of a tiny little hack you could make to a pillowcase to make it work just ace. So here’s a tutorial!
How to make a Hoopdaloopdahoop!
Materials:
One pillowcase
Four 15cm strips of ribbon or leftover fabric, anything will do so long as it’s thin and not too wide. Go through your scraps, something will pop out.
Four press studs/domes/whatever you call them where you live. Or buttons, or maybe velcro, whatever you have lying around. Something to attach with, it’ll be clear in the tutorial.
Scissors
Needle & thread
Step one:
Sew your four strips of fabric/ribbon to the top of the opening of the pillowcase at evenly spaced intervals. It’s not necessary to measure, just use your eye. You could machine sew this on but I just handsewed them on, didn’t take long, less time than getting the sewing machine out. And it didn’t use any electricity!
Step two:
Attach your press studs/buttons/velcro whatever to the top of the strips of fabric and a couple of centimetres from the edge of the pilowcase. There needs to be enough strip there to wrap around an embroidery hoop. If you’re using buttons you’ll need a sewing machine to make button holes. Sorry, no idea how you do that The picture below shows how it needs to work.
Step three:
Figure out which part of the fabric you want to be working on and stuff the rest of the fabric into the pillowcase, leaving the bit you want sticking out the top. You may want to mark the centre with an embroidery pen or some such. If you are working far from the edge you will still need to fold or roll the fabric back to the point where you will be working and secure somehow, with a clip or something. But you’ll only need to do one side so you have access to the back of the fabric. Stuff, stuff!
Step four:
Clip or button or stick your straps over the part of the embroidery hoop you have on the top of the fabric. Some people use the bit with the screw on top, some use the other bit. However you roll.. Then secure the other part of the embroidery hoop underneath and tighten onto your fabric. You will notice in the picture I only have two strips attached. Firstly I only had three sets of press studs and secondly I broke one while attaching. It’s possible to only have two, but I recommend at least three so the fabric is well secured within the case. The objective is to not have to deal with the fabric so the straps act as a fence.
Step five:
Tuck any excess fabric into the pillowcase and get stitching!
That only took me about 20 minutes to make, including photographing and toddler interruptions, so pretty darn easy! Hopefully this is helpful for some of you out there. Please let me know if you come up with any different/easier ways of doing it. Maybe someone out there has a good idea on how to close it off at the top for when you need to put your project away?
Now I’m off to keep working on my epic project and see how this baby works. Will keep you posted.
xox
rayna