Hoardings

Georgine Zeron left me her textile hoardings when she died. Tim and I went to pick them up and they have been sorted and scavanged by a stream of visitors in the studio. She would be thrilled. Textile people are hoarders and hunters and gatherers by nature. Tiny pieces are tucked away to be used as inspiration or embellishments. Lengths are gathered and forgotten. Georgine was no different. Who else would have 40 sets of lacings and boxes of glues with shiny in them but an artist. It took Katherine, her daughter, days to sort through all the stuff. She had to keep me away because I kept taking stuff from the garbage and putting it in the boxes. "Shiny" "Precciouss" We still ended up with eleven boxes of cloth and supplies. Tina helped me go through all of the boxes to sort into fabric type. She took two boxes. Hillary took two for her classes. The Public Dream Society have been invited to go through and see if they want anything for costumes for the Day of the Dead "Lost Souls" Parade this month. Students will benefit. I will benefit and the charity we are working on will benefit. The Christmas production of Sleeping Beauty in Gibsons on the Sunshine Coast will get supplies for costumes. Katherine now has two rooms empty in her house. She is going to rent them out to people who aren't textile people. I, obviously, can't live there. But I like the look of space. I am now going through my own cloth and supplies and handing duplicates over to others. I touch Georgine's cloth and I get to remember her. I placed her favourite buttons in my collection and they nestled there with buttons that belonged to my Granny, my mom, my mother-in-law, my aunties and a number of dear lost friends. I have buttons from military uniforms from the first and second world wars and from tiny children's clothes. I should just string them all together into a curtain or something because I will never let them go! Luckily for me I have nieces who love to collect. My step son Chris's spouse, Vashti, is an archaelogist. Tim's cousin Fi is an anthropologist. Someone will take all my hoardings when it is time!