Opinion: Our lives are bound up with material stuff, from birth to death, the newborn swaddled in towels to the body wrapped in a shroud. So it’s fitting that Fabric-a-brac, a movement founded to extend the life of the woven and knitted material with which we dress our bodies and homes, should support refuges that offer care for the dying.
Almost everyone has an association with hospice. My mother died in Hawke’s Bay’s Cranford, in Hastings. For Fabric-a-brac founder Josie Brennan, her dad’s hospice respites were “a breath of fresh, caring air” from harrowing hospitalisations. And in the 15 years since the then-Wellington-based writer began Fabric-a-brac – when faced with bags and boxes of fabric after her mother unexpectedly moved into a rest home – events around the motu have collectively raised more than $140,000 for the hospice movement. Not bad for a venture run entirely by volunteers.
This year, to mark the milestone, groups in five new centres (making 10 in total) from Napier to Dunedin are locating halls, rounding up teams of volunteers and taking applications from hopeful sellers with cupboards to clear out. Donors can give fabric and haberdashery directly to the hospice table, while stallholders pay a fee for the chance to recoup some of their own expenditure on material accumulated over the years for quilting, dressmaking and soft furnishings.
“Destashing” has become a byword for getting rid of stuff and my daughter Genevieve, a textile designer, is a strong believer in regularly culling her resources. For nigh on 15 years, off and on, we’ve been coming to St Anne’s Hall in Wellington’s Newtown. Greeting stalwart Wellington regional co-ordinator Debs, we back up to unload crates, lay out fabric, check others’ offerings and grab the first cheesy rolls from the cafe before buyers swarm in at 10am.
We have patchwork pieces, dressmaking remnants, leather scraps, a great-aunt’s vintage curtains, needlepoints. Quilt books that cost a fortune, haberdashery, blankets from pre-duvet days and a hoard of pure cotton sheeting rescued from op shops – once, the only new fabric wide enough for quilt backings was polycotton. For the hospice table, we’ve a couple of bags from a retired Hawke’s Bay farmer whose hotwater tank blew, drenching sheets crimson courtesy of her bridge cloth. And we always have a free box, since an early Fabric-a-brac when a young woman told me if she took only one $1 piece she’d have enough money to catch a bus home. Heck!
While social media allows for destashing, there’s a heartwarming sense of community at these in-person gatherings, especially post- Covid. Old friendships are renewed, vintage fabric revisited. Bargains abound, compared over a cuppa in the tearoom, where cake and sandwiches are served on mismatched vintage china.
Women – and men – who share a love of textiles come to buy, sell or (despite best intentions) both. It’s intergenerational – mother-and-daughter teams include a new baby, with grandmother on hand to help out.
My first customer is 90-year-old button collector and regular Ruth, with daughter Sarah. Her seat of honour is by the entrance. She’s looking for bits and pieces to dress peg dollies, some of which once dressed my own daughter’s dolls.
Textiles, as the late Aotearoa quilt artist Malcolm Harrison maintained, are loaded with emotion from the moment of their creation. “You stitch your feelings into your work.” And that’s even before the garment is put to use and memories begin to infuse the fabric.
Ann Packer is a freelance writer and reviewer with a passion for textiles old and new. Go to fabricabrac.com for more information.
