TAYLOR STEVENS– COORDINATOR KING ISLAND CULTURAL CENTRE & GALLERY
Despite growing up surrounded by the musty smell of freshly shorn wool laid out in the shed of a King Island sheep farm, it took leaving home for Robyn Eades to discover her love of working with wool. “I knew about spinning then, but I didn’t think of taking it up myself. I just loved the smell of daggy sheep”, she laughs.
It wasn’t until she went away to Teacher’s College in Melbourne that Robyn decided to take a spinning class on a whim. She was the only student in the class. That was over 50 years ago, and she’s been spinning wool ever since.
Despite her passion for spinning, it took a bit of coaxing to get Robyn to take up knitting. “I had to be encouraged to knit by my family pinning a 10-shilling note to the door frame to finish a jumper.” Despite her initial reluctance, the skill was passed down through generations in her family. Robyn was taught how to knit by both her mother and grandmother.
Robyn can remember when she started selling her wool in 1973, in what seems a lifetime ago, “I had a little shop on the Hume Highway on the mainland, it was good wool country. I had a new baby and a new spinning wheel, so I did spinning and had this little shop. I had my wool, and other people came along and put things in it, the minister’s wife was making things it was really very small to start with.”
In 1980, Robyn returned to King Island, where she put down roots once again with her two children and began designing and building her first home. “We kept this block of land that my parents had paid 100 pounds for in the fifties. So, when the rates went up to $20, mother said, I don’t think I can pay for this anymore so I said, well I’ll have it, I’ll have it!”
After a time, Robyn was forced to leave the house she built. “The sand mine came and said I had to leave, I had to get out. They were offering money. I held out as long as I could. I had to look for another place and start building again. So, I bought another block of land, and designed another house”, she states matter-of-factly. Robyn ended up selling that house to her son and staying on at the original house for 12 more years before someone finally caught on and kicked her out for good.
“At this time I got into the cat hats. We were worried about the feral cats, and we had somebody working for Natural Resources Management at the time, and they got me to take out the stomachs of cats they had in the freezer so they could be sent away to see what they were eating.” Rather than see the rest of the animal go to waste, Robyn began tanning the cats and using them to make various practical things such as hats.
Her dedication to the crafts of spinning and tanning garnered a bit of media attention over the years. In a time before golf courses and the island’s tourism growth, visitors made a point of including the Cultural Centre on their must-see King Island list. The driver of this was King Island’s ‘Cat Hats’.
Robyn has been featured by big names such as 60 Minutes and Australian Geographic. “The Australian Geographic people came and took pictures of me spinning. I felt like I was a bit famous, the photographer said it was his favourite photo.” She got a bit of a shock during her opening scene of 60 minutes while being interviewed when “all the sudden a helicopter flies over me on the beach!” It was all quite exciting at the time.
Despite her incredible resourcefulness and self-reliance, Robyn has finally faced something that has succeeded at slowing her down – her ailing health. After living alone in the bush for many years, Robyn was struck with a severe aching caused by a mysterious illness and was flown to Launceston for testing. Six months later, they only started to figure out what was wrong. When she finally was able to return home, she found she was no longer able to cope with the self-sufficient lifestyle she had been living happily for over 40 years.
So, push came to shove, as it often does, and Robyn was forced to sell her last bush block at Naracoopa and move to town. Thankfully, she was able to find housing set up by the community. “I had my name down and they had this nice little unit ready eventually for me.” Since the move, she’s still been dedicating her time to volunteering at the Cultural Centre and keeping active with the Field Naturalists. Although Robyn tries to remain positive, she’s frustrated with the illness that still plagues her, having stolen so much of her independence and slowed her pace. “I was trying to do something with my hands last night, just a blanket stitch and I just couldn’t do it, and I used to love hand sewing”, she admits frustratedly.
Despite the setbacks, Robyn continues to keep the tradition of spinning alive on the island and holds out a bit of hope that younger generations will pick up spinning once again. “I’ve always been willing to teach anyone who will have a go at spinning.” With a bit of patience and an ability to be able to do multiple things at once with your hands and feet, she reckons it’s like riding a bike. “Once you get it going, it’s fine, you just keep going!”, she laughs.
You can still catch Robyn spinning in a friendly competition at the King Island Show or selling her locally sourced-wool down at the Cultural Centre. Other treasured items that Robyn produced for sale at the Cultural Centre were sheep wool blended with possum fur gloves and alpaca blends.
It’s one part of who she is that she has been able to hang on to despite the hardships she’s had to endure. We believe that’s something worth celebrating. So, we want to take a moment to thank local Craftswoman and Artist, Robyn Eades for her time and dedication to King Island Wool and the King Island Cultural Centre. She’s been a pillar of the Arts and Cultural space, quietly spinning behind the scenes, even if she does find wool jumpers a bit too hot for her taste.