The Sewing Kit

Photo courtesy Flickr

There’s a certain Gone with the Wind quality to fine sewing tools. I mean that literally: one scene in Margaret Mitchell’s novel about the Civil War has Scarlett O’Hara shooting a Yankee looter dead because he has dared to lay hands on her mother’s sewing kit. Scarlett turns to discover that her frail houseguest Melanie has staggered off her childbed to back her up with a cavalry sword.

Now and then I think about decent antebellum values when I pull out my grandmother’s girlhood silver thimble to rescue a seam. Sewing needles were one of the first products of the industrial revolution, and the thimble advanced public health by protecting the sewer from hand infections. A local weavers’ supply displayed a lovely collection of sewing kits this Christmas. The two models are in fine leather in charming colors, and I stopped into the store to check them out. They did not disappoint: the workmanship was as promising as the colors, and the designs are clean.

I had a little leather sewing box as a child, and it stayed with me until the Eighties. It held the thimble, fine needles, an emery strawberry to keep the needles sharp, beeswax, and a beautifully wrought pair of small scissors from Solingen. Each item in the box was a work of art in itself, and the container was a stately little cabinet for the collection. It rested on a dedicated shelf until it was time to sit down, pull out a piece of work, and make a few leisurely stitches.

Leather is a high-maintenance material: it dries out unless dressed with bookbinder’s dressing, fades, scuffs, and eventually the stitching fails. A leather kit serves best in a dormant work area, of which I now have none, by choice. The language of the hand that is designed into a leather sewing kit is stately and stable. I appreciate those qualities as much as the next dame racing from one commitment to another, but I want different service from a tool kit of any stripe.

I want to be able to grab it fast, toss it into a side bag, and get at the contents without fumbling with fasteners. I want it to look good enough to communicate to the uninformed that the contents are valuable, but not so good as to create a risk of theft. It appears that improvising a kit will not be simple. At the moment, the gear lives in a tiny styrene container in a black nylon travel cube, but I think it deserves a new home. Just what, I’m not sure. I do know that I’m not inclined to waste even one cc of space.

Realistically, I can slide a needle into the emergency kit in my side bag and use the scissors on the little multi-knife on my key ring. It will be a while, if ever, though, before I’m willing to give up an elegant thimble and hand made scissors with needle-sharp points.

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