A box full of memories

Earlier this week I was happily sitting upstairs at my desk, still in my pyjamas, drinking my mid-morning coffee and reading blogs, when there was a knock at the kitchen door. Despite my protests at my state of undress, DH insisted on my coming downstairs, where I was greeted by my youngest sister who dragged me outside to see the surprise she had found for me for my birthday next week.

There, on the makeshift bench by the door, sat an old hand sewing machine, which she had just found outside the local antique shop and snapped up, knowing that I had been searching for just such a machine to replace my hated modern electronic one. Now it is sitting on the table in the conservatory while I clean and polish it, before trying it out for the first time.

Having checked a specialist website on old sewing machines, we believe it was made in the late 1920s, and in its probably chequered career it has lost all its spare bobbins and the key to its lovely wooden case. While DH ferreted among his hoard of ‘things that may come in useful’ for a substitute key, I went off to search through my crammed and untidy sewing-box for any bobbins left over from the ancient Singer treadle machine, which, in a fit of temporary insanity, I long-ago replaced with the modern monster.

After an exhaustive search I did indeed find a spare bobbin, which will soon be residing in the nifty accessories compartment in the sewing machine base, along with packs of almost vintage machine needles. However this was only the beginning.  

Having gradually emptied the entire contents of the sewing-box onto the spare bed in my search for the bobbin, I found myself trapped in a hoard of almost-forgotten bits and pieces, heavy with memories and nostalgia.

First there were the buttons, so many buttons. Spare buttons from clothes long gone, including probably almost every suit or shirt DH ever wore in his working career. Cards of buttons from abandoned knitting or sewing projects, mute testimony to my ability to get distracted, and a medley of old buttons, obviously kept just because they were attractive or unusual. 

Among these were three small, pretty, flowered buttons, which catapulted me back to our first married home and the flowered maternity dress my mother made for me and which I wore during both my pregnancies.

Then there was a chaos of hooks-and-eyes and press-studs (remember them?) and spare zips and bits of Velcro, and even the odd buckle from the children’s sandals, kept just in case…. Tangled among these was a somewhat dusty length of black velvet ribbon, which I last wore nearly forty years ago, when it did duty as a necktie for the academic dress required for me to attend the formal ceremony at which I belatedly received my degree.

In another compartment lurked the battered, curved top of what had once been a brass darning-mushroom, together with a small, heavy, horseshoe magnet for picking up dropped pins and needles. Both of these once belonged to my grandmother and were passed on to me by my mother for my little sewing kit, when I left home for college in the mid-1960s.

With those was the now battered felt needle-case or hussif, made as a Christmas gift for me by DD when still at primary school. The inner 'pages' are now rust-marked and one of the appliquéd holly-leaves is missing, but I still treasure it.

Finally, at the very bottom of the box, hidden under the dressmaking scissors and pinking shears, I discovered a couple of the tiny garments I made on my old treadle machine for DD’s Barbie doll back in our impecunious youth. I even made a snowsuit from old sheeting for DS’s Action Man, but that has sadly vanished.

Perhaps I should stop teasing DH for being such a hoarder, as I try to convince myself that what I've been hoarding aren't just things, but irreplaceable memories.