You probably already know that I have a thing for antique thread cabinets. Well, I was hanging out in Aurora yesterday and I found a really beautiful antique thread cabinet in one of the town’s many antique shops.  I want to share it with you! Here’s me and the box:



Here’s just the box:



I have never heard of the Richardson Silk Company but my, their box is pretty!



My favorite thing about this box is the inscription on the side:



“Richardson’s Silks were awarded the Grand Prix [Highest Award] and three Gold Medals at the Paris Exposition 1900.”

Oh, WOW.  If I’m not wrong, I think the judging for that would have happened in this building, called Le Pavillion Des USA:



I love everything that has to do with the 1900 Paris Exposition (expect the human zoo featuring Africans) but I especially love the Palais de l’Ectricite which showed off the possibilities of this new(ish) invention called electricity.  Imagine what that would have been like to people who were unfamiliar with this scientific development!



Here’s the Palais during the day time.  It’s sometimes easy to forget that photography has been around this long.



You know what’s even crazier?  They had video:



Alright, alright, back to the here and now. I love going to Aurora and looking at antiques.  Aurora used to be a utopian Christian colony in the 19th century but they gave up that ghost in 1883 and now it is pretty much an antique mecca for the Portland area.   Actually, MSN.com and TravelChannel.com named Aurora one of the top 10 antiquing towns in America.  Lucky me – I live 20 minutes away!

While I was there, I also learned that the town is (and was) well known for its German influenced quilting traditions.  In fact, there’s a whole beautiful book about it…



You can check out the book trailer for Aurora: American Experience in Quilt, Community and Craft here:



Enjoy!

Love, Erin

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Oh yes I did….



I finally cut into my Gone With the Wind novelty fabric!   After flying out to CO to shoot my Sew it All TV episode, I was in desperate need of some sewing therapy.  I wanted to do something fun, silly and just for me.



I spent months agonizing over what to do with this impulse buy fabric.  I think I hit the nail on the head with this one.  I didn’t really plan what I was doing, I just sort of started in on instinct and came up with this simple log cabin design to showcase my favorite image on what is probably the world’s ugliest fabric.  Seriously.  Show me an uglier fabric.  Here’s what it looked like off the bolt:



Even I think this is hideous and I LOVE the movie, even though it is one long apology for slave-owners and marital rapists.  The fabric designer just really screwed up the color contrast in the black and white kissing scene image and made it difficult to fussy cut the images you actually like by overlapping the motifs too closely.  Boo, fabric designer, BOO!



Now that I finished all of the blocks, I’m struggling with layout.  I thought I would just line them all up and sew them together in the most straight forward way possible – all of them facing one direction, no sashing, no nothing.  I laid that out on the floor and it looked weird.  Because I did all of the log cabins exactly in the same fabrics, when you stack them on top of each other the last strip really dominates and creates several continuous lines of one fabric throughout the entire length of the quilt.  This is what a lack of planning gets you.  Not the look I was going for.

I decided that I really need to go shopping for an equally silly sashing fabric to pull this sucker together.  Fabric Depot is having a sidewalk sale right now (in fact, they told me that the sidewalk sale is going to be never-ending now!!!!!) and I saw that the really really tacky Civil War prints are on deep discount.  I’m thinking  something terrible, like this:



I may end up using squares of the “standing on the hill overlooking Tara” scene as the corner squares of the sashing but I’m not sure.

In any event, I think this quilt definitely calls for a snuggly flannel backing.  I’m thinking of tying the quilt rather than quilting it just because it’s a quick and dirty to finish the thing and that way I can keep the focus on the FUN. Isn’t that what Scarlett would do?



Are prairie points around the perimeter too much?  Can anything really be too much at this point?

I’m excited to snuggle down with this thing and get my TCM on!

Erin

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Elias Howe tried for years to invent a sewing machine but he was perpetually stumped.  Instead of “thinking outside the box,”  he tried to create a machine to replicate the motions of hand sewing using a hand sewing needle.  Elias just couldn’t conceive of sewing without the seamstress…even if she was mechanical.



Looking at sewing machines now, it’s obvious that what Elias was trying to do was impossible and impractical.  With each failed attempt, Elias became more despondent.  Resigned to failure, he went to bed one night and saw the eye-pointed needle in a dream.



Where Elias’ conscious mind hit a wall, his subconscious mind found success.  A little tinkering later, Elias Howe had invented the first working sewing machine!



So, remember kids: always write down your dreams!  It helps bring on more dreams and it helps with dream recall.  Just putting a notebook next to your bed with the intention of writing dreams in it will help you have more dreams that you remember.  You never know what you’ll dream of next!

Case in point: this fantastic animated video about the dreamy beginnings of the sewing machine.  Check it out:



Enjoy!

<3 Erin

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I’m so busy working on getting ready for my Sew It All TV episode!!  I’m going to be making the Icicle Scarf from my book, Stripped Down Patchwork.



I’ve been studying this episode featuring Ellynanne Geisel to see how it’s done…



I’m so excited/nervous to get a crack at doing this on the boob tube!  I’ve never been on TV before.  Keep your fingers crossed that I don’t screw it up!

<3 Erin    

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I’m a sewing history dork, so I have always loved antique thread cabinets.  These display boxes were a common sight in the 19th century.  Thread cabinets stood on the counter at the general store, organizing and displaying colorful spools of thread for a seamstress’ discerning eye. I love the idea of thread being considered so important that it deserves its own little wooden shrine.  That just gets my needlewoman’s knickers all in a twist.  

I have searched around the internet to bring you this fabulous roundup of some of the most interesting and unusual antique thread cabinets out there.  Can you handle this much awesome?  Let’s find out.

This one first!  I have never heard of Lily Sewing Thread but this cabinet is just gorgeous: Here’s another great thread cabinet… …and here’s the same one from the front.  Or is that the side? (Coat’s and) Clark’s is a name you’ll recognize even today.  Did you know that the ONT stands for “Our New Thread?”  No, me neither.

Here’s a really classic set of thread drawers.  I would say this is the most common type of thread cabinet I’ve seen in antique stores and at flea markets. Brace yourself: this one spins!  Awesome. This one is huge!  And it has a clock in the center.  WOW.  I found it here. This one is for embroidery floss.  It looks a bit on the newer side, but still cute: This one I found on Emma Lulu’s Blog, Illustrated Miscellaney.  She put this piece in her studio.  I’m really jealous, Emma!! It holds her thread collection as well as her vintage notion collection.  I feel faint, somebody go get my smelling salts. OK, I know you’re probably getting really excited about antique thread cabinets about now.  Good thing I found this miniature thread cabinet kit here.  How can you go another day without this?  You can’t. Happy Inspiration Sunday!

<3 Erin  

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