From the Flea Market

Last weekend, I went to a local flea market with my mother. It was a wonderful warm day, and after the market we ate delicious cake.
Somehow, all my haul was textile related.

The first picture shows a little crochet hook, metric size 2mm. It is made from coated aluminium and is labeled “disc england”. I wanted it because it is small enough to fit into my needlework kit and I lack the size in it. But the interesting thing in this picture is the little box. It is a sewing kit for travelling, the size of a pill box.

The same box from above. The box is metal, either aluminium or steel with some sort of coating/ fake gilding that is badly scratched in some places. The label seems to be glass or glazed pottery and glued on. It says “needle and thread”.

Now let’s look inside. Looks like the contents are still intact. There are a needle threading tool, a timble, two sewing needles and thread, black and white, wound on a little piece of rubber. The little plastic bag contains the usual shirt buttons, push buttons and security pins. From the look of the rubber thingy, I’m pretty sure the kit is fairly recent, the rubber is still soft. Again, for size comparison: the needle threader is the regulat size.  Somehow it doesn’t look like the contents were ever used, although the box shows signs of wear and tear. I just had to have this sweet little thing. I still have my decorative letter case from childhood, it got a nice spot in there. Does anybody here know when/where such kits were sold?

The next thing was a bundle of needlepoint wool, for the most part Phildar, the rest an unknown brand. Both are no longer sold in Germany. The same stall also had a bunch of finished needlepoint pieces, from their look probably from kits. I’m always a sucker for leftover threads of all sorts, so I had to have these.

Next, Glass buttons! 20 cent each only, and the colour fits a cardigan I’m just knitting, so they too had to come home with me. I hope three of them will do for the cardi, the forth is in case one doesn’t survive the washing machine.

The last thing was this badly worn and torn piece of hand embroidery. It is nothing special but I have a hard time passing such pieces by, which have the charme of creative hand work and real use. It is perle cotton #5 probably on linen, done in satin stitch and some stem stitch. It looks like it had been sewn on a cushion hull or something and was ripped off for flea market sale. It is bleached out and has some spots but the fabric is intact. I will see how it looks after washing and ironing. It will go into my bits and pieces box for now, may be it will inspire me to some recycling project. There sure is enough space to add something funky.