Sarabela

I hope this is ok to share here since it's not a machine. It is definitely vintage. It's a series of books that were left to me by an elderly lady that I used to care for. She wanted them to be loved and used and she knew I would appreciate them. She passed away a year ago at age 98. When she was 17 years old she had a job sewing in a factory making, oh I forget exactly what she told me now but I want to say it was $9 a week. She gave her parents half and saved up the rest until she had enough to send away for a mail order sewing class. She talked about how proud she was. She had to study the books, take tests, and sew a proper dress. She mailed in her tests and dress and she passed and they mailed her dress back to her. That started a long career of seamstress work. She married a man and they had 2 sons. The man proved to love the bottle more than his family so she kicked him to the curb and raised the boys on her own with no help from their dad. She became quite popular as a seamstress and talked about making clothes for doctor's wives and politicians wives as well as foreign diplomats. Here are some pictures of my treasures.

Champanier

Wonderful story - so glad you shared this!

Stitchnripper

That is a great story. Thanks for sharing with us.

SteveH

Fantastic!!! I know it would be a tremendous amount of work, but could you imagine having those scanned into digital format!!!!

I am glad to hear that they went to a person who would give them the respect that they deserve, rather than being torn up intro a decoupage project.. (I have seen an 1860's sewing machine manual that had been used for lining drawers... oh the humanity.....)

Congrats!

EDIT: some history

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Brooks_Picken
http://www.burdastyle.com/blog/sewin...ored-tradition

Guess someone like the idea of scanning them....
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/Sear...nces&x=65&y=14

costumegirl

She sounds like she was an interesting lady So nice that you were given such a great set of books!

Sarabela

Some of them may be scanned! A quick Google search of "Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences" brings up an online library. Since I'm on my phone I can't investigate too much but it appears that some of them are there and viewable.

NJ Quilter

What a treasure for you. Not only the books but to have spent time with an obviously intelligent, caring and independent woman long before it was popular.

Sarabela

She really was an amazing woman. There were times when others were offended by her, she had no filter and would "tell it like it was" but I adored her and valued her opinion on many things. One of the things she taught me to make was "Storybook Pillows" as she called them. They were small pillows for children with a zippered and an open pocket for kids to keep a book and other things in. I made them for my boys when they were about 3 yrs old and they still use them 5 years later.

Kathy T.

What a remarkable woman - she certainly was courageous for her time period. She left you a treasure of memories.

Macybaby

That is a wonderful gift!