Orange twist

This is a find from my favourite store at St. Lawrence market. I bought a vintage sewing grab bag, and I had so much fun going through it I decided to take some pictures and show you everything.

First of all, I think you all know by now I love vintage sewing things. Whenever I go to flea markets or antique stores that's what I'm looking out for. Along the way I often find other things, but it's the vintage sewing things that really thrill me. One of my favourite aspects is imagining that at some point the odd little things I find were actually common. Some things are more unusual and I wonder if they just didn't become popular. I also like to actually use these things, not just collect them, so in short, a grab bag of vintage sewing things is hard for me to resist!

Here's a picture of the bag itself, imagine me turning it around and trying to peek inside to see what there might be. Then realizing that they probably wouldn't care if I just opened it up and had a look, so I did. Of course I didn't see everything until later, but enough so I was sure I would like to take it home.There were a few varieties of ribbon trim, the wide ones are meant to trim the edges of blankets. There's also some bias tape and binding. And some very pretty lace and tatting.There were lots of wooden spools of thread - always welcome, and two special ones. The first special one was a big old spool of black thread with lettering printed on the spool itself, and the second was the half spool pictured at the top of this post, with orange "twist"! It reminds me of Beatrix Potter's The Tailor of Gloucester. At the end of the story the coat is found that was embroidered by the mice, but there is a note pinned on an unfinished bit saying "no more twist" in "little teeny weeny writing".Then there were some handy notions, such as a blue marking pencil to replace my old one which is almost used up. Also miscellaneous snaps and buttons and a little red metal buckle. I'm not sure about the ornate little metal thing in the centre, it seems to be for winding leftover bits of thread on.Then a whimsical item, a set of clogs, one with a yellow thimble in it and the other with a tiny gingham covered pincushion set inside it.And an old Chinese pincushion. They still make these now, but they're brightly coloured nowadays. I like the gold brocade fabric.And my favourite item of all, a little wooden sewing machine needle case. There are little slots for the needles, and someone has written "TOP" on the lid of the case.And finally, the pretty yellow flower buttons that first caught my eye.