Beauty in everyday things
Yet another button fell off a shirt today and in searching through my mother’s sewing basket for a needle and some suitable thread, I realised how many lovely old wooden bobbins she has collected over the years. Some of her sewing treasures have been hoarded, others inherited from her own mother and some, like the beautiful cobalt blue box of French sewing thread and the russet coloured velvet sewing case, have been unearthed in French Brocantes and English antique shops. The bobbins are wound with threads of sumptuous colours, the golden bodkins are delicately engraved and despite their humble origins and everyday usage, seem to me to be things of great beauty. I followed my usual proceedure of running off with as many as I could carry and spent an enjoyable half hour capturing their images on camera…..
View from a French Hillside 
Such gorgeous, rich colors!! love, love, love!!
LikeLike
You are most kind west517!!! I just love these vintage everyday things, so many lovely colours and textures – I hope all is well with you? 🙂
LikeLike
Vintage everyday indeed!! You’ve give me a fantastic post idea — my Grandmother had a pie kitchen in the late 30s-40s and was also a wedding gown designer – she hand made gowns, ball gowns and beaded EVERYTHING– anyway, I inherited so many of her old beads, sewing notions, dress patterns and gowns… I’m thinking I should photograph them 🙂
LikeLike
Blimey west517 you most certainly should! I have another couple of posts in mind on the sewing theme too, there is so much of interest, colour, textures, pretty things galore – get to it girl! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
So..Sewing not my thing eh?
I’m forced to consider whether there’s a rampant sexist lurking in the South of France…
I’ll have you know that for a period in my twenties I made most of my own clothes…The things I could do with a Singer. 😀
Super pics anyway….My Grannies sewing tin was a constant in my early youth…She was a major hoarder, and her huge dark blue and green sewing tin, (which started life as a container of Bluebird toffees), was a treasure trove of buttons of all shapes and sizes…You might not think it to look at me now, but I was a master of button tiddlywinks….
LikeLike
Sexist? Me? The girl who played with Meccano and Lego all her childhood and hated dolls?!! 😀 I see you are a man of numerous artistic talents sh – I’d love to know what sort of clothes you made given the era, New Romantic ruffles or Punk with slashes and plenty of Grannie’s safety pins, (I’m assuming you weren’t a drag queen in your spare time) ?!
LikeLike
I was channelling my inner ‘Thin White Duke’ during most of my sewing sessions……
(Though to be brutally honest, I was more of the slightly porky white duke..sob sob…Thank the lord it was puppy fat)….
LikeLike
The delusions of youth eh!?
‘puppy’ fat in your 20’s ?! I assume you’re ‘avin a larf there, sh I’m sure it was just over exuberant youthful spirits /beer/burgers/chilli chocolate and that you’re now svelte elegant and mature….. 😦 
🙂
LikeLike
That was comedy humility that was…Truth be told I was both gorgeous and rake-like even then…. 😎
BUT…Thinking about it…. I am STILL improving with age……
I’d thought that perfection was always going to be just out of reach….Now I look in the mirror and I’m not so sure.
🙂
LikeLike
Problem with that sh, is that if you’re anything like most people of our nicely maturing but still fabulously youthful age, you probably need glasses to even find a mirror – and the vision of loveliness that greets you there will be more than a little blurred around the sleek and dashing edges 😎
😀 😎
LikeLike
20/20 vision………
Even my eyesight is perfect….
I know, sickening isn’t it?
😀
LikeLike
Absolutely sir – I suspect you a marvel to behold, even with glasses on
There’s nothing else for it I shall just have to fnish with this 😛
LikeLike
😀
LikeLike
Just found your new – and very long awaited – post, excellent stuff, I have of course left a Like and a comment 🙂
LikeLike
I knew I could count on you, Dear Madame de Morlais…
😀
LikeLike
🙂
LikeLike
PS Is there an emoticon for bifocals? 😎
LikeLike
Snigger.
LikeLike
Of course your mother had fantastic style in her sewing basket, and probably in nearly everything she touched as well. There has to be a reason for your wellspring of sumptuous talent, Jane!
I’m hoping one day to be the recipient of my mom’s sewing basket as well, not for any true inner beauty or artsy fartsy-ness to it, but rather because it holds a bucketfull of memories that are stirred by that which lives within. It was a treasure house of knickknacks that appealed to all my curiosities as a child–and I don’t want to give those up.
Lovely post and exquisite photos again, Jane. Congrats.
LikeLike
Thank you Shelley! I quite agree with you about the memories – I was particularly fascinated by the button tin as a child, the contents were regularly employed as make believe treasure or to play ‘shops’ ! The hooks and eyes and safety pin chains always seemed rather marvellous too!
LikeLike