Stuff

I picked up a box of sewing notions at a rummage sale ages ago. I bought it because the upholstery needle and strip of velcro alone were needed at the time and worth more than the 25 cents I paid for it. Anything else was a bonus if I ever used any of it.


Did you notice that there is no key for "cents" on the keyboard? At some point they must have decided that there was no need for it anymore. Well, "they" must not shop at thrift stores and rummage sales!

I used up the velcro and have used the upholstery needle, but I finally looked through the rest of the shoe box. Among the bits of scrappy junk, I also found this:

So many things to like about this. I love the packaging, the source of origin (not a "Made in China" in sight), the feel of the fine bias tape, and the fact that some other lady bought these things at a trip to her favourite fabric store at some distant time. I also like the thrift store chair they are sitting on, although it matches nothing in my living room. Nothing else matches either, so maybe that means it really does match my non-matching living room decor?

Inside the book of needles are just a few needles, and the descriptions of others.

It's interesting that the bookbinders needle is missing. Maybe that's what the flax thread was for. I've never seen flax thread before, but I can imagine it binding a book of lovely homemade paper. Maybe that's a project for my future, but I'll have to buy myself a bookbinders needle first. I don't know what a packing needle was for, but it's also missing. What's left is this upholstery needle and the pretty large carpet needle. I don't need that one in the foreseeable future. At first I laughed at anyone needing a sailmakers needle, but then I remembered my mom making a sail once. So that's not so remotely in the past after all.

I hope to never need this one:

I think it would take a certain amount of brute strength to get that thick needle through anything. It was thrown into the back of the package as if it needed no explanation. But it does.

So here's the question I had to ask myself this week. Should I should use the bias tape or flax thread? Would you? Or should I keep them for a shadowbox or display in my sewing room one day?

The other question is, will my sewing room ever really BE a sewing room? It's scattered with books and kid crafts and a dismantled chair, and an office for Alice built into the closet. She insisted on a place for her Barbie computer to compose music (her "work") and I allowed it for the time being.

One day that room with be mine though. ALL MINE! NO MORE COMPROMISES! BWAHAHAHA!

Sorry.