This weekend, I received another heirloom from my parents' attic of treasures. This is one of many sewing boxes in their house, they have about 5 or 6 as most of the women in my family have enjoyed sewing, but this was a box I hadn't seen before. It has been commented that it looks a bit like a snake charmer's basket, but inside were all sorts of wonderful random things.
There are definitely items in there from my childhood that Mum must have put aside, mostly ribbons and buttons, and a few things from Mum herself. The rest is from my relatives who lived in Brighton, on my maternal Grandma's side (same family as the Singer sewing machine). As far as I know, my family were in the same house in Brighton from 1925 to 1982, and their Singer machine is from 1908. I have no idea how to date most of this, let alone the basket itself, but including the things from my childhood in the 1990s, the items in this box could cover most of the 20th century. Included in the sewing box are adorable boxes in various sizes, sewing needles, thread, small fabric pieces, fastenings, bias binding (22p from Woolworths, according to the price sticker), tens of pairs of scissors, lots of thimbles, and loads of bundles of elastic. I may have sat on my living room floor saying 'oh wow' a lot on Saturday! Here's a few of the bits that I liked most.
I did some research and 'Wades of Brighton' was a big department store on Western Road that closed in the 1970s. The paper bag is full of elastic; everything I could find on the internet about Wades mentioned the haberdashery counter, so it should be very good! The sewing needles match the one currently in the Singer machine, so I needn't have worried about running out of those. I keep finding new things every time I open this box, it's brilliant.
Aside from the box of wonders, it's been a bit quiet on the sewing front lately. I did my practice, I worked out most of the parts of the sewing machine...but now I have no idea what to make. I'm at such an early stage of learning that anything I make won't be all that great, but I need to make something to start off, but then I don't want to make something important in case I ruin it with my lack of skill, but I need to make something...bit of a vicious circle. So I'm partly procrastinating, and partly looking at my other hobbies.
I mentioned in the blog description that I make cards every now and then, and I was super pleased with this 'Wicked' themed card I made for my best friend's birthday, also this weekend. This is the unfinished version, I stuck 'Happy Birthday' across the bottom once it was all stuck into place...and then didn't take any pictures. But this is definitely my best hand made card yet.
Hopefully more creativity to come next weekend, if I can drag myself inside from the garden. Potatoes, tomatoes and strawberries growing now. :)
