Gifts from long ago

My friend Julie recently handed me a little bag, she figured I might know what to do with these items. They belonged to her mother.

P1070566Red heart darning yarn. P1070568But wait! Red Heart?? Wool?  As knitters we are all familiar with Red Heart yarn, it’s always acrylic.  It can be found at all big box stores. It was THE yarn of the 70s’. But turns out that when Coats and Clark started the company 75 years ago, there were no synthetic fibers. These would arrive on the seen just a few years later, the 1940s.P1070567At which point not only would nylon be used to reinforce heel and toes while knitting or darning, they would replace silk stockings and the word ‘nylons’ would come to mean pantyhose.threadHere was an item my friend was completely unfamiliar with. She may crochet and knit, but she hasn’t done bead work. Once again, this beading cord would have been made of silk (and today – is again) but was being made with the new wonder fiber – nylon.  The card on the right was already used, it should have been thrown away since the needle is long gone. What needle you ask?P1070578If you look closely you can see a very thin twisted wire attached to the thread. Who ever came up with this method is a genius. The wire is no thicker than the cord, which means you aren’t doubling the cord over to thread in a needle. Most beads and pearls have very small holes drilled into them, this makes stringing pearls an easy job – rather than an onerous one.  No I won’t be using this cord, silk cord is readily available today. After 60 years, the needle has rusted and left it’s mark on the cord, and who knows how strong the cord itself is?P1070574Remember these old wooden spools?  We threw them away willy nilly and now are left with plastic ones.

At Quiltcon I saw a friend wearing a necklace made from one of these old wooden spools.  I still have some very interesting beads in my collection, so off to work I went.P1070580Hers didn’t have any beads. These are handblown glass beads I bought at a show years ago. They were part of another necklace I took apart. Of course I saved the beads.P1070582I guess my eyesight is getting bad, I never noticed those little silver dots  until I took this close up picture.

The only thing I kept were the two other spools. The wool was moth eaten and I have no use for the nylon darning thread. Today good sock yarn has a percentage of nylon already spun in.  I’m not one to darn socks, when they go – they go – that just means I need to knit up another pair.

Leah

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