Tag Archives: Italian Nonnas

May 12, 2024 · 12:20 pm

Coming full circle…

A photo taken with Nanna Francesca at my first big Italian wedding in the 1970s. (The reception venue of the day complete with champagne glass tower, doves, smoke machine and parquetry dance floor to slide across later on!)

I have to laugh seeing Nanna Francesca and me dressed uncannily unlike here. 👀 By the time I was in my teenage years, this would’ve driven me crazy! 😄 In a way I had to come full circle over the years in my relationship with Nanna Francesca. From the comfort of her tucking me in bed (very tight!) when I stayed over and the joy of her taking me to the ‘pictures’ (where she talked loud!) – to when I was a teen fighting against her traditional, often restrictive, ways (and strong advice!) – to later, when I’d grown up, truly appreciating her.

Only then did I fully realise how tough life had been on her at times – the early griefs, sacrifices and stoic endurance that made her who she was. She gave me a love of cooking, her mother’s embroidered linens and many items for my ‘Glory box’. She also gave me true unconditional love and that is so precious to receive, for it stays with you.

Happy Mother’s day to all the mums and tight hugs to those missing their mums, grandmothers and mother figures no longer with us but whose part in our lives keeps on giving richness and love in all that they gave. Much love! Zoë x

the sewing box…

Mending… so out comes the sewing box Nanna Francesca gave me for my 8^th birthday. I can’t tell you how disappointed I was to receive this as a present at that age, though I put on a happy face so not to hurt her feelings. Afterwards, I told Mum she could have it and the sewing box sat in her linen press for years. Yet, once I moved into my own house, I went and retrieved it and it has stayed with me.

I’m not much of a sewer like my grandmothers and great-uncle were. I can only mend hems or sew on buttons by hand. In first year high school, when all us girls had to do ‘Home Economics’, I liked the cooking (we made scones and shepherd’s pie) but didn’t take to sewing. I think I lacked the patience and neatness needed. It was Mum, in exasperation – ‘You should at least be able to mend a hem and sew on a button!’ – who showed me.

The white thread I’m using was hers. All the other spools also Mum’s or my grandmothers’. The scissors, a bit blunt now, were Nanna Francesca’s, and Quality Street chocolates I’ll always associate with having at her house. I know I’m terribly sentimental but it’s nice to be reminded of these connections on the odd occasion I get out this old, sewing box.

Even this sundress I’m mending is old and faded but its cool cotton is perfect as a ‘house dress’ in summer. I recall women in Italy sitting on chairs outside their doorsteps, mending clothes or linens (to me, a comforting sight). Partly, such mending stems from necessity, especially in poorer areas, however in Italian folklore there’s also an awareness and valuing of the fleeting nature of certain earthly materials we use. Like linens or timbers that bear the effects of sun, wind, human treatment, rain, marks, stretches and shrinks in their histories of use and misuse. Things that may not be financially worth much, but worth being mended for as long as they may be used.

Once I would’ve been too self-conscious, but I think if I was in Italy, I’d now drag a chair outside the door while I sit and hem, catching the breeze and perhaps a chat if someone happened to stroll by… 💚🧵

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Tagged as art of mending, family sewing history, growing up Italian Australian, hand sewing, hemming, Italian Australia, Italian folklore, Italian grandmothers, Italian Nonnas, Italian village life, Italy sewing, mending, mending clothes, old and new, recycling, repairing clothes, Sewing, sewing box, vintage sewing box

Jul 26, 2022 · 11:55 am

limoni e mandarini…

On the kitchen table today… a friend’s home-grown lemons and mandarins on one of Nanna Francesca’s 1950s dinner plates. So lovely when someone brings you fruit and flowers they’ve grown in their garden. To me they’re the perfect gifts. (And the fresh, crisp lemon scent currently in the kitchen is divine!) 🍋

I have to say, we ate off these dinner plates at Nanna Francesca and Nonno Anni’s for decades and it’s incredible how small they are compared to plates these days. That said, I think there were often second, (and even third!), helpings at times. 👀😄 But as is the case when an Italian Nonna has been doing the cooking – no one ever goes hungry!

Hope you have a lovely day. Zoe xx

Sempre avanti…

My Bisnonna, Granny Maddalena’s birthday was today and by complete coincidence, this morning I was talking to one of her relatives in Italy of her stories that I’m writing about. Like many of her era, Maddalena’s life was shaped by hard-earned experience as she lived through two wars, an earthquake, a pandemic, the depression and bringing up her sons single-handedly before she could join her husband in Australia.

I guess it’s no surprise there’s a saying among Italian Nonnas – ‘Sempre avanti’ – no matter what happens, keep looking ahead, keep going. The strength and braveness of these older women is remarkable. (Granny Maddalena still cheerful and cheeky in her late 80s.)
Sempre avanti! xxx