The Costume Museum of Canada, where I volunteer, has been sorting through boxes of hundreds of shoes. Some times random things-non shoe things-end up in the boxes and I have the fun of finding them. In one pair of man’s button boots I found this.
Cool. I had seen them in photographs and from a distance in museums. I’ve seen replicas up close. This is the first one I have ever held in my hot little gloved hands! Well those button boots happened to be unbuttoned and so for the sake of preservation of those shoes I buttoned them with the hook. Had a blast. Learned the hard way it is best to button from the bottom up and not top down. I can be a hands on learner for sure!
Later on, I found two lumps wrapped in tissue that were not shoe shaped. I thought they were books.
They turned out to be cases. Both looked like this one.
Inside one….
3 packets of needles. 2 bodkins. 2 button hooks…one long and one short. 1 crochet hook and 1 tapestry needle. A few items seemed to be missing from this “sewing kit”.
If I were to guess, I’d think that scissors would be missing. The second case seemed to be missing several items as well.
This one had a shoe horn, tweezers and a cuticle cutter. Would this be a grooming kit for a man?
It seems to be missing a pair of scissors, a button hook and 3 other items.
