If something can be fixed with a needle and thread, then Yackandandah drapery's Sue Ellen Hillier is game to give it a go.
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In the 35 years since she opened her shop, Mrs Hillier has patched up trampolines, pump covers, lamp shades and umbrellas.
She said she could do curtains too, but it was a common misconception it was all she did.
“Many people come in thinking you only sell drapes,” Mrs Hillier said.
“In the olden days a drapery had clothing, haberdashery, that sort of stuff.”
One thing in abundance in Sue Ellen’s Drapery on the main strip is “stuff”.
Shirts, dresses and paraphernalia targeted at tourists spills out onto the pavement on racks under the veranda.
Inside, the three main rooms of the drapery, at first, seems to be outfitted like a general craft shop.
Shelves of buttons and cottons line the walls of one, but then there’s bric-a-brac and hats in another, as well as garden plants out the back.
The eclectic mix of goods and services have all evolved in a fairly organic way to keep Mrs Hillier from being idle, which she hates, as well as keep the doors open.
She said the majority of her trade was once locals, but, with more methods of community transport available it was now the tourist dollars which kept the shop afloat in the summer months.
Where the heart of the store lays, however, is in the odd jobs brought to Mrs Hillier by residents, from around the region, for her to repair or create.
On the day The Border Mail visited, a small family had come in and picked out some green and blue sheets of material for Mrs Hillier to make into art smocks before the start of the school.
Mrs Hillier said, on occasion, brides-to-be would even hop on top of the repair room table, covered in a freshly lain sheet, in their online purchased dresses which were too long or wide.
She said the hemming sessions which then ensued were some “good fun”.
“There’s nothing much around like this, perhaps no one’s been around as long as me to have something like this,” Mrs Hillier said.
It’s hard to imagine what could ever close down Mrs Hillier’s shop.
Even a fight with breast cancer about seven years ago couldn’t get down the pragmatic small business owner who nonchalantly says she went through the treatment and it was “all good” now.
