10yds of Buttonhole Twist

I have been inspired to make pin cushions, and recently came across a McCall's pattern I bought in 1983 that includes one of my favorite style of pin caddy. I like this style because it doesn't roll away when you try to stab in a pin while your machine is stitching. I never really use the thread on the side - it tends to tangle and become a nuisance. Not wanting to spend a fortune on spools of thread, I won't use, to fill the caddy, I went searching through my mother's stuff hoping to find 9 or 10 small spools of thread to finish my project. There in a big bag of ancient cones and power machine spools, I found wooden spools of silk, and nylon, glowing like jewels at the bottom of the bag. Inveterate reader that I am, I began reading the spool names and started down a path of American textile history that was surprising and enlightening.

I have grown up on Coat's and Clark threads but I never thought about the impact these thread companies had on our American economic history - especially since they were almost all British owned companies (including the American Thread Company) that controlled over 2/3rds of the production and marketing of thread in the United States. The Clarks and the Coats were Scot family textile business that made it very big in the US with the invention of the sewing machine. They made it too big and were finally busted up when the US government sued them for violating the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1913 - ahh! it takes me back to the Ma Bell days (I'm expecting to see Verizon finally get their hands slapped soon) but I digress...

Among the beautiful spools of silk I found were manufacturing names such as Belding Hemmingway, Belding Richardson, and Belding Corticelli; look up Belding and you will find it linked to Carlson Currier thread maker. If you have any old, vintage sewing books, I'm sure you've seen the name Corticelli. Those same old books will also have Clarks "O.N.T" threads; O.N.T stands for "our new thread", heralding the invention of a six-ply soft, even thread that would run through a sewing machine trouble free.
My favorite spool of thread is a mending thread made by Collingbourne; the label says: LEARN TO REMEMBER NAMES-BEGIN WITH MINE.






I'm going to include a few links here for you to peruse and learn more about threads and their impact on American history!

http://www.coatsandclark.com/About+Coats/History/Coats+History.htm,

http://www.textilehistory.org/CoatsandClarkThread.html,

http://www.textilehistory.org/AmericanThread.html .


Read your own thread spools, you may be in for some surprises!
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New Blog Title!

Yes, I have changed the name of my blog because the previous title just didn't express the activity very well. I was, at first, sorting out my mother's things but now I am also sorting out my oldest brother's contributions to my garage and, of course, my own mess. I am terrified of being labeled a "hoarder". I've never seen the television show but I come from a long line of hoarders, and my friends tend to hoard stuff - neatly - like fabrics, thread, "glitterfunke", and other oddities. Have you ever gone shopping with a hoarder? They can convince you that you need stuff you can't ever imagine using, and you go home with these prizes that fill up your closets for years to come. Don't go shopping with me then, if you value your open, unused spaces, I have the gift of talking people into "needing" things. One thing I must say on my behalf, I mean well. I know if I had just bought that thing you didn't really want that some day I would use it; so when you're ready to get rid of it, let me know.