Cut Your Cloth
Islanders come of age when they are 21 years old. This is their third seventh-year transition, as it is seen on the island. The first, at age seven, is the transition from questioning to exploring. The second, at age fourteen, is from exploring to discovering. At 21, islanders are considered to have questioned, explored, and made discoveries, and now they are given the right to take action on an equal footing with everyone else.
(Though it should be said that the questioning, and exploring, and discovering stages are all equally respected, and young people are usually included in conversations about the business of the community.)
The ceremonial broadcloth they are given at their coming-of-age ceremony is indeed broad.
A person's family will have spent as long as they dared prior to that date preparing or acquiring the best possible fleeces, which are then stored in tight bundles and scented with lavender, to keep away the moth.
These supplement the fleeces gathered that year, to give them the best chance of creating the largest possible bolt of cloth. Thus someone's cloth is inextricably linked to the environment of the island, dependent on the climate, the health and size of the flock, and so on.
Anyone can give some fleece to be added to the cloth, so the size of it is also dependent on how many islanders might feel interconnected with that particular person or their family.
A large bolt of cloth should last a person a lifetime, but that's all about how they choose to cut it.
Broadcloth makes excellent clothing. It can be used for blankets, and for upholstery. It has also been used for shrouds.
Some cut their cloth completely whilst they are still young. This often happens in large families, where children's clothing is prioritised and therefore takes up the majority of the cut.
For others, making your cloth-cutting last the length of your lifetime is a more important matter than what you might necessarily cut.
Those who are most highly regarded in the community manage to balance both what they cut, and when they cut it, and for whom they cut it. You can cut anyone into your cloth, if you so choose, and for any reason you choose. It doesn't have to be a member of your family.
The only expectation is that you will make worthwhile cuts with the whole of your cloth. There is no such thing as an unused off-cut, of any kind. Scraps that are too small to be fashioned into something are carefully saved, and used to stuff small toys cut from the same cloth. Nothing is left lying around for the fairies to find discarded on the floor.
It is considered extremely bad fortune for you and your descendents if your cloth is not fully cut and used by the time the fairies whisk you away from this mortal life.
As the saying goes, "You cannot cut someone else's cloth", so making one's relatives inherit the remainder of one's cloth is akin to singing misfortune into their life.