Plain sewing sets.

This time I am taking a look at

plain sewing sets.
But just because the outside is plain,
doesn't mean that the inside would be -
although the floral pattern of this
set is really quite sweet.

Inside, we find a quite complete embroidery/mending
set. With no brand name on the outside of the box,
we only have the details found on the thread cards
telling us that it is Made in England. The silk thread
has the Duldarn brand on it.

This set has had little use.
It has a drawer in the front to hold the work in
progress - currently empty.
The brand name on the thread card reads Sewswell - Menda.
There is a sweet little button card of four green buttons, a
Blue Star Brand Finest Quality Needles packet, scissors, ribbon,
threads, thimble, fabric, and safety pins. This set
is also Made in England.

This set has two drawers in the front which holds
two children's handkerchiefs, - a rabbit design and
a crinoline lady design -
ready to be embroidered.
Inside, we find that this has had a lot more use than
the other sets. There are knitting needles, crochet hook,
thimble, many "Glister" thread spools, rayon
embroidery threads reading Swinden (Fancy Goods)
Ltd. Redditch, England,
and a blue "doiley" ready to embroider.
There is a gold foil oval pasted inside the lid
which reads "Sewinden" (yes, with an e)
Product - Made in England

I would say that this set has been added to.
Although it is almost complete with all of
its thread spools, thimble, pincushion, safety
pins, paper tape measure, "Floral" needle
packet - English Made, Best Quality Sewing
Thread cards - Made in England, and perhaps
missing the scissors. There are other
embroidery thread cards on the inside
of the lid, a Silcarn Mending thread card,
and Vicars Salome Tapestrie rayon thread,
plus The Albion AMG sewing and mending thread.

This again, has two drawers in the front
of the box holding cloth to
embroider and a paper pattern and
stitching instructions.

Next post, I will be taking a little look
at sewing cards.

Pincushions, Hearts, Wishbones, and Crochet!

I have had a few requests for patterns since my post on

Thimble Holders (Crocheted Wishbone Thimble Holders).
I have also had an email from someone who lost the
treasure (crocheted wishbone thimble holder with
a crocheted heart-shaped pincushion attached)
they were given by their grandmother and
sadly lost it in a house move.
I will be posting a pattern very soon
when I will be back home.
I have been away for the past week.
I hope that you will check back again - when I
am able to update.

March 2, 2008

I have had a search through my patterns and
while I do not have the same
pattern as the "wishbone thimble holder with
heart-shaped pincushion", I have what I
think is the next best thing.
I have found a vintage pattern for a crocheted
"powder bag", and instead of filling it with
powder, you could fill it with polyfiberfil.
It can be attached to the crocheted wishbone
thimble holder for which I have
previously posted the pattern.

Below is a pattern for a "crocheted pineapple
pincushion" which is from - Star Book No. 74 Fair
& Bazaar Suggestions - see further below.
The pattern does not give the finished size but if
you look at the cover picture, you can tell that it
would be approx. 6 inches long.
If you are a skilled crocheter, then you may be
able to adjust the size in accordance with the
wishbone thimble holder.

If you look again at the "wishbone thimble
holder with heart-shaped pincushion", you
will see that the crochet work is extremely
fine (pincushion 4 inches in length).
So a lot depends on the size thread and
gauge hook that you use as to what size the
finished item would be.

I have included a picture of some of my collection of
pincushions which shows a lot of these vintage
crocheted pineapple pincushions.
They all vary in size as you can see.

I hope that this has helped those who are
looking for crochet patterns for sewing accessories.
Don't forget to click on the pictures for larger image.

Two Vintage Sets for Children

Here are two very vintage sets for children.
The first I would date to around the 1910's
and no maker's name on this.
The condition of the outside of the box is
a little poor but the inside looks fine.

As to the contents of the inside of the sewing
set, it is as found, so I cannot tell if they
are original.

There two cards of sewing thread, two pairs of
scissors, two lots of embroidery thread, a card of
little buttons, part card of hooks & eyes, a small cardboard
threadwinder with thread, a packet of needles, more
buttons, thread spool, and two balls of crochet cotton.

Above is a close up of the picture on the lid of
the sewing set. It looks to me like this child is
going to do some gardening with a rake
and watering can.

The Toy Knitting Outfit below has wonderful graphics
on its lid.
It is actually a spool knitting set and is dated around
1910's.
This set is made by Milton Bradley of the USA.

On the lid of the box it says - This Outfit has given
pleasant pastime to thousands of children.

Inside the box we have three spool knitters, 2 original and
1 homemade from a small wooden cotton reel/spool, and yarn.
While I would usually place this on my other blog - spoolknitter -
I thought that you would enjoy seeing this set just for
the graphics.

Junior Miss!

Continuing with children's sewing collecting theme,

I have this very simple, but sweet Junior Miss
Sewing Set - A Berwick Toy
Made in England

The contents show six different colours of embroidery
thread, two cards of mending thread (Glista "Mendarn"
Mending - Made in England), packet of
needles (The "Floral" packet Finest Quality
Needles - English Made), and red thimble.

I just love the graphics on the lid of this set. The seated
young girl is sewing the hem of a doll's yellow dress,
the kneeling young girl is playing with a sweet doll, there
is a cane sewing basket on the floor, a ball
of wool in front of the basket, and the dog has a
giant red thimble on his head!
There is no date but it is numbered as
"No.1". I have to guess yet again,
possibly 40's - 50's.


More sets to follow!

Vintage Sewing Sets for Children

One of the many fields of vintage sewing

collecting is the category of children's sewing.

Some of the items we find are -
Needlework sets
Embroidery sets
Sewing Card Sets
Sewing for Dolls
Millinery Sets for Dolls
Knitting, Crochet and Weaving Sets and
Children's Sewing Books.................etc.

I have a number of different sets and books about which
I will be posting from time to time.

Here are three sets all Made in England.

I have been lucky to find these particular sets
in a reasonable condition with a lot of their
contents still intact. Now, apart from finding
a mint condition, unused set with which to
compare the contents, I can only assume that
these items ARE original to the set.

Miladi Needlework Companion is made by
Berwick Toys - England
This set is numbered 106.
Octagonal in shape, this colourful set has butterflies
and flowers on the lid.

Inside, we find embroidery threads on cards marked
Junior Miss Embroidery Thread
- A Berwick Toy Made in England
(still stapled to the base),
cardboard spools of thread with Miladi
on the ends of the
spools, paper tape measure,
scissors, thimble,
a handkerchief with a transfer of a puppy to
embroider, 1 skein
of embroidery thread, a cloth needlebook,
and a piece for cross stitching.

Below, The Seamstress Needlework Companion
Made in England
Again, this is an octagonal shaped box.
The cover shows a wooded scene with fairies
and toadstools.

Inside, we find - scissors, thimble, paper tape measure,
packet of Peerless Needles, Sewing Thread on card Best
Quality, 2 skeins of Peerless embroidery threads, and
various cardboard spools of embroidery threads.
Shortly after taking this photo I found another two
spools under the insert.

Below, another Miladi Needlework Companion.
This box is hexagonal shaped.
We have a number of little characters and
various sewing items shown on the cover.

Inside this set we find, paper tape measure, scissors, thimble,
various spools of cottons, 2 skeins of embroidery thread,
a packet of Miladi Sewing & Darning Needles,
a card of Miladi Hosiery Mending thread,
and a card of Strutt's Elastic Thread.


There is no date on any of these boxes, but I would say
they are from the 40's - 50's.

If anyone has any information on the Berwick Toy Company,
or knows anything at all about these sewing sets,
I would love to hear from you!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Make a Wish!

How many of you save the wishbone

from the Christmas turkey?
Do you know that you can make
an unusual thimble holder using
a wishbone and crochet cotton?

Victorians had a flair for whimsey!
They often turned unusual objects
into something to delight the eye.
Animal horns and hooves were often
made in pincushions, so using a
wishbone for a thimble holder seemed
perfectly logical - they never threw
away anything!

Below are some samples of thimble holders.

Left - a vintage wishbone thimble holder
Right - a newly made wishbone thimble holder
(this one uses an ordinary sized chicken wishbone
which was a little small).

Below is a vintage wishbone thimble holder
and pincushion.

And another one below here this time
being a lot smaller pincushion than in
the previous photo.

This is a vintage crochet book -
Crocheted Gift Novelties from 1916

And below is a pattern from this book
for you to make your own!
It will be up to you as to what size hook
and crochet thread you use.
Have fun!
(click for larger image)

****************

MY WORKBOX

I want to treat you all to some pages from
my latest acquisition -
The Cult of the Needle
from the early 1900's.

These pages will speak for themselves!
Enjoy!

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(click on picture to enlarge)

Old Photos

These photos were purchased at
an antique shop a little while back.
I love them for the wonderful
styles of dresses that the young
ladies wear.
I often think that I should have
been born a century earlier!
I wonder whether they would have
worked on the making of the dresses
themselves, possibly a loving
Mother, or a dear Aunt, or maybe
a dressmaker.
Was there lots of hand-stitching, or lots
of machine stitching on a treadle
or a handcrank sewing machine? -
handmade laces, silk ribbons, buttons
and expensive trims?
Did they have the latest catalog/ue or
pattern book?
What colours or fabrics did they use?
I hope you enjoy this little look.

Sisters?

Above - March 1890

Vintage Girl's Own Annual

For my first post of 2008, I wanted to show you something

I consider really special.
The book below - The Girl's Own Annual
Edited by Flora Klickmann
dates around 1917.
I found this book during my recent holiday at
a very favourite antique shop in Tasmania.
This is a large publication of nearly 700 pages,
so I hope you will forgive my attempts to scan some
of the pages from the book. (This book is very thick
and scanning the inside was very difficult due
to the pages curving and distorting the print.)
However, what I have managed to show you is, I hope
of some interest to you.
There are a great many short stories in this book both
fictional and educational - but of course we are mainly interested
in the fashions and crafty articles, aren't we?

The very pretty cover.


Fashion update for 1917

What every young gardener should be wearing!

An easy apron to make and young fashions.

Do you crochet? These are especially
pretty patterns.

Below - making beads.

(click to enlarge)

It appears that I have been tagged!
Cathy from Hazelruthes has tagged me and I now have
to reveal 5 random things about me!
I really do want to keep this blog informative rather than
diary-like/personal but sometimes you can't escape it.
So here goes -

I don't drive!

I can wiggle my nose (but nothing magic happens!)

I have many obsessions (nothing new here) - one of
them is collecting toy dressers (cupboards/hoosiers?)
I needed somewhere to store my collection of toy tea sets!

I love to eat prawns. As a matter of fact, I had
garlic prawns at the pub last night.

I am fascinated with wooden dolls/toys - spoolknitters, kokeshi dolls,
matroushka's, and the like.

So now I have to tag another five bloggers-

Susan - Susaninstitches
Heidi - Needlenecessities
Becky- Sweetcottagedreams
Jane - Jane'sjots
Linda - Chloe'splace


(Oops! - It sounds like I had a holiday at an
antique shop - though it might be a great idea! LOL!)