Time Capsule Part Two

Back with more pics of what I found in my thrifted time capsule handmade sewing box. This matchbox was filled with straight pins and tiny buttons, also something my grandmother used to do with hers. It makes me wonder if the box could date back to the forties, and was inherited by the next generation.

I found fine steel crochet hooks (one was a double-0 with a cap for the hook, which I've never seen before) and a very slender, slightly bent awl-type tool that may be a thread picker.

I've only seen reproduction wooden needle cases. This one is the real deal.

And it still had needles inside.

It's always fun to guess what the original owner did with their tools and notions. The box's contents were a bit disordered, but from everything I saw I think this was a working sewer's box, probably primarily used mostly for clothes making and mending (there was a pattern wheel tracer tool and a well-used bit of tailor's chalk in the box.) Yet she definitely crocheted, too.

There were some mysteries, too. I've never seen a razor knife like this. Could it be an ancient ancestor of the rotary cutter?

I reorganized everything as I went through it; here are all the spools of thread that came in the box. Some I recognize as coming from the seventies; others are wooden and quite old. I love finding spools with just a yard or two of thread saved on them. That always touches my frugal little heart, as I do the same. :)

Anyway, I will preserve this time capsule and hope that the next generation in my family finds it just as interesting.

Comments

Gifts

This is a story that starts out very sadly, so if you're depressed by the holidays you might want to skip the first part. As far back as I can remember I've dreaded the holidays. Being poor, having constant family troubles and belonging to a strict religion made that time of year always pretty unhappy. I just hunkered down and hoped to get through without being yelled at or punished because I didn't do something I was expected to do, like sit in church for hours without moving or making a sound while a priest spoke mass in Latin. Gifts were uniformly disappointing, too. My mother usually gave me dolls or socks or underwear for Christmas. I understand now as an adult that she was doing the best she could, and trying to save money at the same time, but as a kid I'd been told good children got what they wanted for Christmas. I was a pretty good kid, but while my friends received new bikes and cool toys and lots of treats from Santa, I didn't. I thought San

We Have Backsplash!

Yesterday my guy and I decided to chose this natural stone as the backsplash tiles for our new kitchen counters (which will be in the same quartz I'm holding at the bottom of the photo.) Since all the bids for installing the backsplash came in very high my guy is going to put it in himself; he's done a bit of tile work in the past, too. I swear there is nothing this guy can't do. :)

Detoxing Results

For twenty-four hours I left these five vintage cigar boxes sit with detoxing agents (baking soda, coffee grinds, dryer sheets, vinegar and Febreze) inside them to see which worked best to remove the tobacco/storage odors that came with them. I then removed the agents and did a sniff test. Before we get into the results, a reminder: none of what I do is ever meant to be expert advice, as I am certainly not an expert at anything. Follow my methods at your own risk, and please first consult an actual antique expert conservator or restorer to detox items that have value for you. Okay, let's see how my experiment worked. Baking soda (left) did nothing to remove the odors. I think if I let it sit for a longer period of time it might have done something, but for a 24-hour test it was a complete fail. Coffee grinds (right) removed 100% of the odors, and left behind definite coffee scent. I like that and think it goes very well with wood, but if you don't like the smel

Rayen

Search This Blog