The Sewing Box

I’m happy  to say that my parent’s move is over and that they are now settling into their new home.  The downsizing that we had to do was a fairly huge task, but we managed to have some fun along the way.

One of the things that turned up was this vintage sewing box:

It belonged to my great aunt Florence who passed away over 30 years ago.  When I opened it up, I found lots of fun old buttons.  There was a collection of metallics:

and an assortment of cloth covered ones:

There was an entire set of 6 large and 6 small silver buttons that were probably intended for a jacket.  These babies were surprisingly heavy for buttons.

  There were little fancies:

And lots of buttons that were obviously cut from previous garments.  Great Aunt Florence was way ahead of the game with recycling.  ;-)

Don’t these pink plastic buttons just scream 1960’s?

Of course, there were the usual bits and bobs that find themselves in the button collection:

There were also a few travel sewing kits.  We’ve all seen the ones that hotels give out to guests, right?  It’s good advertising.

But, I can’t imagine what the connection was between this advertiser and sewing:
 
If you’ve had a little Seagram’s VO, I suggest you step away from sharp objects.

The box also had a few complimentary tape measures from various sources:

Oddly enough, the red one with the tape wrapped around and held with an elastic because it no longer would retract had this slogan:

In case you can’t see it, it says “proven reliability”.  Ummmmm, no.

Last but not least were some wooden spools of thread.  Apparently it was very important for thread to be “boil fast” back in the day.  That’s what it says on the top of each spool.

I had to admire my aunt’s frugality.  The brown and purple spools had less than a yard of thread left on them. barely even enough to sew on a button.

I plan on keeping the spools in a glass container somewhere in my sewing room where I can see them, but the buttons are going to be joining up with all the other buttons I already have in my own collection.  I imagine that one day  my own descendents can look at them and decide what to do with them.