Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained

I met my friend Mary Beth a little over a year ago.  I had gone to her fabric store--a hole-in-the-wall mom&pop place--on the day after I found out that my sister Tina had stage 4 lung cancer, when I needed to be somewhere else than my house.  

I had been to her store at some point in the past:  I remember getting lost finding it; I remember digging through fabric to see what I could find; and I remember being utterly overwhelmed.  There were piles and piles and piles of fabric in remnants and bolts, zippers everywhere, thread, masks and costumes.  Everywhere.  I remember not being able to walk in sections of the store for the mountains of stuff.  

Fast forward to May of 2009:  having learned about my sister, and knowing in my heart that not only did she have cancer but that there was little hope for her recovery, I went over to the store to bury myself (literally) in the comfort of our mutual obsession, fabric.  

Trims (and Not All of Them)

I burrowed into the fabric, but, having been in retail most of my adult life, I started tidying up as I went.  It was, I suppose, my way of taking control in an overwhelming situation (not only was Tina mortally ill but she lived in Colorado Springs and did not want me to come out).  

Each day, I was galvanized by new discoveries. I organized the trims and laces--all of which pre-dated 1980--and became aware that there was a vast treasure trove of vintage fabric on the disorderly shelves around me.  

I am pretty sure that Mary Beth didn't know what to make of me.  It became apparent that, even though it was clear that she was overwhelmed by her surroundings, no one had ever thought to try and help her.  The advent of the local Wal-Mart several years before had gone a long way towards putting her out of business--to this day many people don't know the store is still open.  (When it opened the Wal-Mart sold fabric and patterns:  after they drove out Jo-Ann Fabrics and nearly killed Mary Beth's store they stopped carrying both.  Go figure.)  They had also suffered a flood and the movers who had packed everything so that the store could be cleaned up had packed and unpacked them carelessly, making what had by all accounts already been a cluttered mess much, much worse.

As spring moved into summer, new sports developed:  Fabric Diving, the Fabric Bolt Toss,  and Costume Wrangling.  When I was not camping, I was crawling over, through, and around fabric and racks in the darkened and HOT (no A/C) back section of the store.  

THAT is where the treasure was.  At least, the fabric treasure.

This one is in the Better Homes and
Gardens Sewing Book!

In the deepest, darkest part of the store, underneath tables that had been stacked high with bolts of (ew) polyester double knit, on shelves that I had not realized existed because they were buried beneath three feet of piled bolts of fake fur, were the brocades, the boucles, the Lurex brocades...

Lurex Brocades

This is stuff you will see as clothing in vintage clothing stores.  Mary Beth had it by the bolt.  The caves at the back of the store yielded one stunning fabric after the next:  often as I pulled them out all I could see was a glint of color or metallic thread and it was only after I got them to the front of the store that I realized what I had found.  

IT'S PINK!!!

I can't tell you how much I sweated, how much water I drank, how much dust I inhaled, how dirty I got, how many bags of trash I put out, or how many times I lost my Bluetooth.  Eventually Mary Beth stopped fretting that I was going to end up in the emergency room because I had been buried by an fabric avalanche (believe me, it happened; I survived).  What drove me to do this was not the promise of more incredible fabric (although that was a factor) but her gratitude for what I was doing.

Flashback!

Double Flashback!

As time went by, Mary Beth started pitching in (I am convinced she didn't know what to do in the beginning; the mess was so overwhelming that she didn't know where to start).  

One day, I brought my little black light into the store and made Mary Beth turn off the lights so we could watch the screaming psychedelic fabrics fluoresce.  (Note:  apparently these fabrics are so screaming that Blogspot can't upload them.)

To be continued...