A Childhood, Distilled Into Colour

EJ has two boys, one and two and a half. Most mornings begin in the dark.

Her little one stirs and she slips into his room before the rest of the house knows the day has started. The hum of the heater. A breastfeed that, since he weaned the night ones, has become the quiet ritual that opens her day.

“It’s our special time and I love it. The house is quiet, it’s still dark out, he’s undistracted and still snoozy. I like to pray over our day.”

One table, two whole lives

One piece of furniture sits at the centre of EJ’s life right now: the dining table. She works from it, eats from it, her family eat from it.

One half is always kept clear for meals. The other half is piled with the makings of Posies in June: fabric, scissors, half-finished letters waiting for their next stitch.

“Our dining table has so much meaning for our family. It’s a place where we all gather to eat, share breakfast and meals, and then once the kids are in bed, it’s where I sew and create.”

A different life, not so long ago

Before this, EJ worked in domestic violence, a chapter she describes with such gentleness that it feels worlds away now. Deep, important work that lives close to other people’s hardest days.

Then motherhood. Slower days, longer nights, and a first postpartum year that she’ll tell you, vulnerably, was hard. She talks about those seasons with a tenderness that only comes from having lived them.

A gift, then another

Two babies and motherhood rightly took the front row. When she did come back to her sewing machine, she came back gently: a few pieces as gifts for friends, then the realisation that she wanted to keep going. “It was a creative outlet I hadn’t had for years.”

Then one night a post went viral, and overnight Posies in June took off. She still talks about it with a little wonder, true to her humbleness, as though she’s surprised it happened at all.

Not really about the sewing

If you’d asked me what a bunting was before I met EJ, I’d naively have said small fabric letters strung and sewn together. She would gently disagree.

“For me, it’s not about the sewing. Yes, important, as it brings the product together. But for me it’s about creating a cohesive bunting with bold fabric choices, the challenge of matching tones and shades. And capturing a little one’s interests, in just a few letters.”

A name. A favourite animal. A childhood distilled into colour.

The fabric shop

EJ doesn’t go to the fabric shop alone. She goes with her son, and it has become something sweeter than an errand.

“He makes a cubby out of the trolley. I sit him inside and I load fabric reams on top. He was giggling and laughing, saying ‘I’m in my cubby.’”

Some days she sends him on hunts. Find the fabric with cars. Find the one with animals. He points each one out with the gravity of a small mission completed.

At the post office the ladies behind the counter know them, and he watches the parcels go out into the world. “Now whenever he sees the mail man driving, he asks if he is delivering my bunting to people’s houses.”

Just do the thing you’re doing well

EJ is honest about the harder part, the way it’s easy to feel stretched thin holding the kids, the house and the business all at once. What has helped her is something small and brave.

“I just practice being present. If I’m contact napping with my son, I’m enjoying that. If we’re out at the park, we’re enjoying it together. And when the kids are napping or in bed, I pick up the tools and enjoy time creating. I can’t do everything at once. But I can do the thing I’m doing well.”

What refills her is nothing complicated: “a phone call to my mum. A hug from my hubby. A visit from my mum-in-law. Funny how the people around us can so clearly see our gifting and talent.”

An invitation down memory lane

I ask EJ what she hopes her buntings become. She has clearly imagined it many times. “I would love for it to be an invitation down memory lane, to spark a conversation between mother and child about all the fond adventures they had together, once upon a time.”

“You loved birds, and we would spend hours watching them at the park. That was your hospital outfit when we brought you home, and we didn’t sleep a wink.”

That is what she makes, really. Memory, small enough to hang on a wall.