Vintage Craft Items
Whether you're after something craft related as a touch of nostalgia, an antique for investment, or the real deal to add to your crafting hobby, you'll find there are many vintage craft items that will offer all of these. Books and patterns can teach you how, boxes and baskets to store your collection, as well as tools, equipment, fabric and yarns to recreate the look and feel of any era.
Vintage and Antique Sewing Boxes and Baskets
Boxes and baskets to stash and store all kinds of items were very much the in thing throughout the 1800's and 1900's. For women, a metal or wooden workbox, sewing box or basket was a must. Portable to carry from room to room, or small enough to sit on a table beside a comfortable chair, sewing boxes with their inset trays and compartments held threads, needles, and other paraphernalia needed for day to day repairs or fine embroidery. Many of these are still functional today and make a lovely addition to a home. Cantilever sewing boxes, with their concertina effect and many nooks and crannies to keep needles and threads, are popular and available new. Wicker sewing baskets, with or without lids, are excellent for storing multiple craft items.
Vintage Bits and Bobs
To add the authentic touch to your vintage craft collection look for original wooden cotton reels branded with names of manufacturers such as Paton's, Sylko and Coats & Co. Knitting needle and thread guides for crotchet and spinning yarn from scratch and measuring line and row counts. Sewing machine attachments, particularly for old treadle Singer sewing machines have stood the test of time. Round blue tins of Dorcas pins from the 70's are now collectors' things. While thimbles and pin cushions, especially silver items will still be usable or look fantastic in a display case. Metal and plastic buttons, and buckles, studs are collectable and useful for other projects. Those using brass, gold, silver, glass or Bakelite may add the finishing touch to a retro outfit, a piece of jewellery, or to keep as an investment piece.
Vintage Fabrics, Books and Patterns
Fashion really is cyclical, and some of the styles and designs seen today are enjoying a revival from trends of days gone by. Sew vintage fabrics of various patterns, textures and weaves into something new, or collect and use to drape and enhance your craft collection to best effect. If you're looking to learn a new _x001A_old' type of craft, or recreate a contemporary version of a style from the past, books and patterns for knitting, sewing, crochet, macramé, tapestry, cross-stitch, leatherwork and so on can show you how.