Grandmother's Sewing Tins

She now spends her days in an assisted living apartment.  She naps, reads the paper, takes calls from friends, and receives occasional visitors, most often her dear friend (also 91, still living alone) or my mother-in-law.  She's never been much for T.V., but she does like her news programs on the radio.

Years ago, like most other women of the Great Depression, she used to sew.  By the time I was born, she no longer sewed out of necessity; sewing became a hobby, taken up less frequently with each passing year.  But when I decided I wanted to learn, she was my first teacher.  When she came to stay with me while my parents were traveling, I completed my first 4-h project, an apron, under her tutelage.

I still sew today, but--like Grandmother--not out of necessity.  Last summer, my family went through many things in her home, which we continue to maintain.  I was encouraged, as her only grandchild, to take anything I wanted.  I sent a wide variety of items along in our crates to Germany, among them a couple of tins that had been filled with some of Grandmother's sewing supplies.  She had a serious supply of trims and bias tape!  I took anything that was beautiful or that I felt I'd use in my own sewing. 

The Girl and I spent a pleasant afternoon hunting for treasures (buttons and jewelry to be shown later).  Somehow into one tin went a few miscellaneous items, including a couple of wonderful vintage brooches and Grandmother's library card from Chicago back in the '50s.  

I love it all.