The Mill Fab Store

 

Photo-Carleton Place and Beckwith Heritage Museum

If you Google the Mill Fab Fabric stores you won’t find anything. Anyone that is looking for Fabricland in the old Kanata mini mall near KFC won’t find that either.

I was 5 years old when my grandmother handed me a scrap of fabric and told me to create something. It probably never occurred to her that a creative 5-year-old and a sharp sewing needle could be a volatile combination.

Sewing is one of those skills that connects me to the past; every time I pick up a needle and thread, I think about my Grandmother and what she taught me.  For years I used to sew and it took me forever to finish projects and I struggle mightily with weighing perfectionism with actually having something finished. Like, “will this shoddy zipper bother me more than NEVER FINISHING ANYTHING EVER?” So sewing  was banished from my life years ago when I stopped designing clothes for my store in Ottawa and closed it.

When I protest and tell people how much I hated it when I did commission work for friends, and how much time it took for how little money I made, they tell me I should “just make something small” because they know a guy who knows a guy who does that for a living.

Yeah, and I’m sure they make less than I do for WAY more than 40 hours of work.

I sort of hate sewing because it’s too expensive and I’m horrible at spatial thinking, so it requires way more mental energy than any other hobby. Also, fabric is expensive! People who don’t sew think you save money by sewing, but it’s almost always more expensive as off-the-rack. I used to sell vintage dress patterns because the news ones are so expensive.  But then again, so are some of the old ones. Check this out!

Just added this tidbit fro Dianne Saunders President IODE CP : Henry (Hank) Collie was the owner of the Mill Fab Stores. Hank’s father William Collie Senior was the owner of the Collie Woollen Mill in Appleton.

The first Mill Fab was located in Ottawa at Cityview Plaza on Merivale Rd and later stores were in Lynwood Village Bell’s Corners (owned that building), Walkley Rd Ottawa, Vanier/MacArthur Rd, Carleton Place and Smith Fall’s and he owned a warehouse in CP on the Corner of the Townline and Dufferin Street.

Hi Linda:

 My sister-in-law Nancy Collie of Carleton Place forwarded your piece on Millfab to me on Facebook last year. Our Carleton Place store was always the best store we had on a per-square-foot basis. Unfortunately, the business closed in 1981 due in large part to the new demographic — the working woman who didn’t have the time nor inclination to sew.

My Dad’s family were in the textile business; coming to Appleton in 1937. My mother’s side of the family was the Bennett clan. Her father Harry and his brother Austin (Aunnie) ran Bennett’s Butcher Shop for years. My late wife and I bought Harry and Annie’s house on Flora Street in 1976 and stayed there 12 years.

Bruce Collie

Your Carleton Place Blast from the Past Bill White--This pic taken around the middle 70 Arena Upper Hall

Clipped from

1. The Ottawa Citizen,
2. 13 Aug 1981, Thu,
3. Main Edition,
4. Page 3