Pretty old thread

Last night I read an email from an old friend.  I met her when I was 6 or 7.  She was friends with my oldest brother.  But she somehow wasn’t totally annoyed with this crazy blonde haired little girl.  We reconnected on facebook a while ago and it is no secret that I am addicted to old things, sewing things and pink typewriters.  And last night she sent me the best email in the world.

She asked me if I wanted these.  She had two boxes of old wooden spools from her grandma, and a sewing book from 1949.  I kind of freaked out and used way too many capital letters and exclamation points in my response.  And this morning she dropped them off.

Ever since I started thrifting a few years ago I’ve been dreaming of finding a bag or a box of a drawerful of beautiful old thread.  I’ve looked at them on etsy and ebay and at every antique store I’ve ever been in. But never had a good enough reason to buy them I guess.

I’m too much a thrill seeker, finding it “in the wild” at a thrift store is so exciting.  Buying it on etsy is not nearly as exciting, even if the end product is the same.  The thrill of falling instantly in love with something that someone else thought was trash is awesome.  And then thinking how lucky you are that you found it before that other guy did is also thrilling.

[ Yeah, the pink ones are TOTALLY my favorites.  I can’t make myself put them back in the box.]

Paying someone else to find it for you and then ship it to you is not nearly as exciting.  Of course, now that I have two boxes of thread to play with, I will probably buy some more.  I’ll add it to my obsessive collecting of things in every single color.

And then this morning Chrys made all my dreams come true.  Which sounds totally cheesy, I know.  But I spent a good 30 minutes stacking up different spools of thread and taking pictures of my new favorite color combos.

It has been a happy happy afternoon spent with these old beauties.  And I’m sure that this is not the end of the thread photoshoots.  Does that sound lame? Kind of?  I don’t care.  They are pretty.  And old.  And I can’t help myself.

This spool is my favorite.  I don’t know exactly when they stopped making wooden spools, but it was a long time ago, and I had no idea that invisible thread was on the market that long ago.  How cool is that?  Answer: very cool.

Thanks to my brother Jared for picking some awesome friends more than 20 years ago. And a huge thank you Chrys for making today the best of the whole week. I hope you all have a good weekend.