Fabrications can be made with classroom students, scouts or camp-goers. Each student can contribute a “treasure” to the composition. Depending on ages and skill levels, students can help construct the fabrication. Volunteers can help sew, too. This is a good way to teach basic sewing skills to children.
Be sure to have extra “treasures” for students who do not bring contributions from home. Another possibility is to take students without treasures to a thrift shop to choose a treasure there. All students can write a short piece describing why their contribution is a treasure, or what is meaningful to them about the item.
Fabrications can be made with other groups, too. Community centers and retirement centers can use fabrications as inter-generational projects and story-telling opportunities. Fabrications can be used to celebrate a common history, such as “Fabrications – A Celebration of Madison’s 150 Years – in Cloth” – a project I conducted in 2006.