Quilt of Borrowed Time - the FABSCRAP Experience

FABSCRAP is a non-profit organization that recycles and rehomes textiles. It is a donation center and reseller, a resource for those looking for fabric or thrifted pieces and/or looking to be part of a positive change in the fashion community. A haven for fashion students, clothing designers, those interested in the waste process of garment production, sewists in general, and Arrietty.

I visited Pensylvania, and sat in on “The Truth About Fast Fashion: Film Screening and Panel Discussion”, at Drexel University. The dialogue focused on sustainability for the individual and in the industry, and what those changes look like on personal to macro scales. The panel included Chris Baeza (Drexel University), Carly Kusy (Jefferson University), and Saida Burns-Moore (FABSCRAP), who deepened my understanding of their business’s environmental benefits, and the standard it sets for the field. The charitable organization depends on active volunteers to reach their goals. They have warehouses in Brooklyn, NY, and Philadelphia, PA, each with an area for volunteers to work and a section with the garment accessories, fabric, and clothing available for purchase.

Giving this group any of your time would involve sorting and separating fabric and thread from its sample packaging, and removing non-recyclable aspects such as glue and hardware. The process produces very minimal waste, mostly paper recycling and material to be shredded. The resulting fibrous “shoddy” is versatile in terms of stuffing, saving the fabric from its alternative polluting fate. Along with sorting, there are other ways (mentioned on the “Volunteer”) page on their website to get involved.

My family and I went to their location in Philly and each donated over an hour of our time, after a brief introduction to the process. Those who run the facility are helpful and informative, happy to clarify how to treat a certain fragment or about the establishment itself. We sorted through samples and scraps, glitter and glue, buttons and boards, pins and threads. Each bag or box was sealed and sent from a company that would otherwise be throwing their production waste away, instead adopted by FABSCRAP. It was interesting as a sewist to examine these international fabric scraps, feel new content combinations, along with adding new patterns and colorways to my inventory. If there are any pieces you want to hold on to, the sorter has the opportunity to put something that would otherwise be shredded towards the 5 pounds of textile they are able to take home for free.

Those who run the facility are helpful and informative, happy to clarify how to treat a certain fragment or questions about the establishment itself. Once we were done sorting of our own accord, we looked through the available inventory. There was a large bin for tops and bottoms, all in varying conditions with varying numbers of sleeves. Smaller cubbies held yards of fabric organized by color, folded neatly and stacked together. A shelf carried buckets of ribbon, elastic, buttons, and other small supplies and embellishments. Fabric was also available at a much larger scale, patterns on the bolt ready to be measured and cut.

My personal favorite corner housed trashcans of small scraps, labeled by type. I could have spent hours digging through bins of lace and leather and fur. Shiny oil slick orange leather, thin white spiderwebbing lace with glittering blue thread, lush squares of speckled cheetah your fingers sink inches through. I did not want to take more than I needed or something I did not have a plan for. But, I could not resist dainty rectangles of lace in pink, white, and black, along with a wallpaper-esque floral hiding a small unicorn in two colorways, and a deep navy drowning a Chinese Dragon style tiger. These small squares weighed less than a pound, but in the nature of trying to be less wasteful (and not wanting to bring back much more on the plane), we donated the rest of the pounds we had earned. 

If you have the opportunity, FABSCRAP is a productive way to be involved in the fashion consumption community. And if it is your wish, you’re able to bring home fabric or garments from their collection- a free and ethical way to acquire materials. New fabric is woven with the donation of time and dollar: a recycled cloth of potential.