LATE at night on a station about 160kms out of Cobar, Kate Lauritsen-Graham sews button-up blouses for rodeo riders while her joey, Zoey watches from the comfort of a pillowcase pouch beside her.
“I spend the day working fixing fences, on the motorbike, cleaning troughs, general station hand work, and I don’t often have days off,” Ms Lauritsen-Graham said.
“So when I clock off for the day, I put on a podcast and sit down at my machine and I just get lost in it.”
Ms Lauritsen-Graham grew up on the station that her father still manages today and has been riding bikes and horses on the property as long as she can remember.
“My dad has been a station manager on this station for 25 years,” she said.
“My first muster on the front of my dad’s motorbike, I must have been a baby, and when I was about four I had my own PeeWee 50 (dirt bike) and would follow him around out mustering.”
When not on her dad’s bike, even in her youth she was interested in arts and crafts, but the matriarchs of her family instilled in her the desire to sew.
“I always had a bond with the sewing machine,” she said.
“My mum would patch dad’s clothes, things like that, and my grandmother would make dresses and costumes, so she and my mum were both very talented.”
But learning to use the machine from her grandmother as her teacher wasn’t always easy.
“Granny was a big sewer and a few times she tried to teach me, but she was a terrible teacher,” she said.
“Every time something went wrong, she was short tempered and had no patience for it. She’d say ‘let me show you how to do it and then just end up doing it herself.”
Ms Lauritsen-Graham said while she never really cared for fashion or trends, she enjoyed wearing loud and colourful clothes when competing in gymkhanas.
“I always wanted to wear something funky and eye catching,” she said.
“Then about two years ago I thought, how hard can it be to make my own shirts?
The first one I tore up and threw in the bin, but then I went right-o, and I sat down and had another go.”
Ms Lauritsen-Graham said that the former owner of the station, a woman called Bronwyn, was an incredible quilter and like a grandmother to her, and most of the shirts she makes now are from fabrics left behind by her.
“She’d come and visit and she’d cook and things, she was very creative and I really loved her,” she said.
“She was a keen quilter and had all this fabric, she made beautiful quilts. But then she passed and all of her old fabrics just sat there. It was all incredible fabric, there was vintage and imported fabrics, a lot of one-off pieces, just such stunning high quality fabric. And I wanted to use it, to continue this tradition of the station.”
Ms Lauritsen-Graham bought some simple patterns in a range of sizes which she’s gradually customised to fit more comfortably.
“They’re all one-off and made by hand by me in my sewing room,” she said.
Alongside her in her sewing room at any given time is her joey, Zoey, who she’s raising until she’s old enough to be released.
“I’ve had two little natives, my sewing room rats,” Ms Lauritsen-Graham said.
“My first little munchkin, Lyla, she was an orphan and I raised her for about a year and then slowly released her and now she’s living out her best life.
“She still comes and visits sometimes.”
Ms Lauritsen-Graham said she was heartbroken to release Lyla and had decided to not foster another roo, til a friend called her needing a carer for a joey.
“So that’s how Zoey came to be my little sewing room native,” “ she said. “She spends her time sitting in a little bucket next to me in my sewing room, drinking milk and eating things that she shouldn’t. Her favourite thing to munch on is patterns!”
Ms Lauritsen-Graham’s sister, Maggie, is a talented horse rider and follows the rodeo circuit, wearing her sister’s designs when competing.
“I made her some funky shirts for when she’s riding and following the circuit,” she said.
“She rides a horse that she trained herself which is pretty cool, and I basically sponsor her with shirts whether she likes it or not.”
Ms Lauritsen-Graham now makes shirts which she sells through her online shop, Martillies Handmade Clothing, on Instagram and Facebook.
She named the label after one of the stations her family manages paddocks.
“I wanted it to be related to me and the area I grew up in which has had such an influence on my life,” she said.
Ms Lauritsen-Graham said she plans to sell her handmade wares at stalls at rodeos and gymkhanas and also would like to stock pieces in a few more shops around town.
She offers custom orders and readymade pieces on her Instagram and Facebook at @martillieshandmade, and also stocks a small range of shirts at Jonnie Loves Noreen in Patton Street.
