Patchworking

The Lassie and I accidentally found a fabric shop a few weeks ago, and had a little peek inside. The Lassie is a patchworking star, as I told the shop man. We got on to chatting about patchwork, and he said it makes him laugh that customers are very particular about the fabrics they use for their patchworks. Cottons or nothing. In the past, when making new out of old was necessary, everything went into the patchwork, all weights and colours of scrap fabric, shirts and dungarees, summer dresses and party frocks, curtains, anything. To see a modern equivalent, look at woollypedlar.co.uk.

Snippets of fabrics made me think of snippets of stories. I have often thought of writing down the memories my parents have come up with over the years - they are both on the far side of ninety years old. But the important thing about writing down these stories is not so much what happened and who said what, but the background against which they happened. The story about Auntie Annie hitting my grandfather across the face with a haddock has to seen in its context - the quayside, crates of fish, and the woollen shawl that Auntie Annie pulled around her as she took to her heels and ran up the stone stairs. ('I grabbed me shaal, and I ran up that bank...'). Shirts had separate collars. Dark red or green bobbly tablecloths, heavy and often trimmed with tassels, covered dining room tables.

Boys wore grey shorts until they were coming up fourteen. Wearing your first suit was a rite of passage. But those shorts came down to the knee, and socks (if they stayed up) almost came down to meet them. And children's clothes were invariably scratchy and uncomfortable. My Aunt Jenn's coat must have smelt of nutmegs, because she always had one in her pocket to keep the moths away.

A patchwork of my life would start with bits of candlewick bedspread, yellow plastic sou-wester, crinkle swimsuit, horrid school uniform, then 1970s cheesecloth and Laura Ashley. Now, for those of you who like to write and need a springboard -

Choose some of the past fabrics from your life. What stories do they have to tell you? Are these stories for somebody else to read, or just for you?