1969

This printed velvet fabric is from a blouse that Anna B.’s mother made for her in 1969 when she was growing up in Sweden. She wore it, she says, when she was a hippie and has kept it since. The pile of the velvet has worn off under the arms and on the side where her shoulder bag used to rub against the fabric. Now Anna lives in England. Having a clear-out, she offered the blouse on a free-cycle website. That’s how I got it, together with some other lovely old bits of fabric and ribbons – a fabric sales representative once lived in the house she and her husband bought, and there are many textile treasures his widow had kept and left behind.

I used the velvet from the blouse to line a box that celebrates what was once The Shock of the New.