Antique and Vintage Sewing Tools

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While a vintage Singer, White, or Willcox & Gibbs sewing machine may be the most visible object in a sewer’s studio, most seamstresses and tailors rely on a myriad of smaller tools, from scissors and thimbles to pin cushions, bodkins (blunt...
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While a vintage Singer, White, or Willcox & Gibbs sewing machine may be the most visible object in a sewer’s studio, most seamstresses and tailors rely on a myriad of smaller tools, from scissors and thimbles to pin cushions, bodkins (blunt needles used to thread ribbon through hems), and clamps (to hold a piece of fabric taut on a sewing table). If small enough, these items are often stored in decorative sewing boxes or étui cases, with the most collectible items in this genre dating from the Victorian Era. Darners like the one used by Father McKenzie in the Beatles song “Eleanor Rigby” were made in all sorts of sizes and of just as many materials, although wooden and blown-glass darners were most common. The working end of the darner allowed the sewer to stretch a torn piece of fabric or knitting over its surface so that a repair could be easily made. Some of these darners resembled baby rattles or maracas, while others were shaped like eggs, which were frequently large enough to hold a card of needles along with one or two small spools of thread. In Victorian England, spare needles and thread were also kept in decorative “nanny” pins or brooches, which allowed nannies caring for the children of the upper classes to keep the tools needed to make a quick repair to child’s torn shirt handy. Similarly, a range of sewing tools often hung from chatelaines. Other cylindrical needle cases were made of sterling silver, bone, ivory, and pewter, but with the arrival of inexpensive chromolithography in the middle of the 19th century, the booklets in which needles were sold were often kept in a sewer’s tool kit, owing to their handsome designs. By the 20th century, for example, needle booklets produced in Japan featured everything from elves to space ships on their colorful covers.

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