snuggling up with #rbrtOZ

Last year I attended the James Tizard Memorial Lecture in Adelaide. The guest lecturers were Ethan Zuckerman (MIT) and Genevieve Bell (Intel). I was there because broadband matters in my world and I had heard James Tizard (inaugural CEO of the South Australian Broadband Research and Education Network, AKA SABRENet) was a pretty special guy (he was known as the “broadband builder” – *like*). The complete lecture was recorded by Radio National’s Future Tense so you can stream/download.

At that event I met James’ sister, Clare Tizard. We chatted about James, broadband, reallybigroadtrip and my bus and sewing/knitting (my new hobby at the time). Turns out that ‘stitch & bitch’ is a pretty big part of her life – she has a blog called “sewandsewstoo“. She’s a really lovely lady and gave me a glimpse into why so many people said such lovely things about her brother James.

I met Clare again when I was providing nerd-support for a sound art project that took place on a steam train between Victor Harbour and Strathalbyn during Kumuwuki. She asked how the roadtrip was going and offered to make me a quilt for my bus! I was touched… what a lovely thought, no one has ever made me a quilt before, never mind for a project. But since so much of my world is crowdsourced that suited things perfectly.

A couple of days ago I was at Adelaide Festival Writers’ Week. Clare had messaged me saying “see you after your talk – bundle in hand!!!”. Here’s the wonderful quilt she made – including the rbrt logo! (albeit backwards, bless!!). It’s GORGEOUS and will be given a pride-of-place position at my ‘makers’ tea party’, hAbitAt, on Monday. THANKS CLARE! <3