I only let two people pick things up for me for my stall when they spot something in the wild. These two ladies understand what I’m looking for. In an op shop in the small town of Albany, Western Australia, one of them recently found this door snake / draught stopper.
Made up of many circles of fabric scraps, I was delighted with it, not least because my brand for my stall is Patchwork & Mosaic.
I thought for a long time about this brand image. Other stalls at the market are chic and sleek, with cool black fabrics and signs. By the nature of my stock, I knew I couldn’t offer up any streamlined, minimalist or sleek brand messaging. I decided to lean into the mismatched=ness of my products and make a silver lining out of that cloud. Instead of consistent, cohesive branding, I’ve adopted the mismatched, the patchwork, the and mosaic as *the* message.
This suits me personally too, because patchwork, mosaic, mix and match, power clashing, maximalist - these are the styles I’ve always been drawn to since childhood.
I asked my mum Linley if she’d ever seen anything like it, because she’s very good on sewing lore. And she knew exactly where it came from. In the 1970s her stepmother Merle used to make them, along with other women in the Country Women’s Association craft group. They would donate them to schools, churches and community groups for fundraising sales.
I’ll be hunting through op shops and second hand book shops for old patterns and craft books until I find a pattern for these!