...vintage thread

I must confess to being something of a vintage haberdashery collector, some (my family) might say obsessive hoarder! When I started buying a few essentials to get me started in my sewing I found myself drawn to the vintage items, this is partly due to childhood memories and therefore familiarity and also my love of good utilitarian items.  I am fascinated by theses every day household items that have been kept in drawers and sewing boxes just in case they came in useful.

 This quote from William Morris kind of sums up how I feel about my collection, all are useful by the nature of what they do and yet they have a beauty of their own,


 “If you want a golden rule that will fit everything, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” 
― William Morris

My latest acquisitions have been these lovely sewing threads, the small wooden bobbins are adorable and brought a smile to my face. We live in an era where we are reducing product sizes but we can see here that the size has increased, I wonder how many women just had to have the new sized bobbins. They still hold 100 yards of thread, although I doubt if anyone ever measured to see if they got their full quota.

I am trying to find a way of dating the different designs, I think that Sylko ceased trading around the early 1980's but I am happy to be corrected on that, so that would make everything at least 30 years old.  In the top picture can you spot the one that has a price ticket on from Woolworth's,  it says decimal on so I think that was probably from around the early 1970's when decimal currency was introduced to the UK, and the 1/2 p was done away with in 1984 so it can't be any later than that.  I think I will put on my Miss Marple disguise and do some further investigations.

Does anyone else have a love of vintage haberdashery or am I the only one?  Have you inherited a great stash of sewing goodies? If you have any vintage haberdashery that you no longer want please let me know, I could probably find it a good home.  If you have found away of dating vintage sewing threads please share.