The button box…

It is near 40 degrees here today, and to pass the time being stuck in doors I thought it would be a good time to clean out the sewing cabinet. And believe me this was no easy task!

A little bit of background…. this sewing cabinet was bought from my mother approx 14 years ago, complete. It came with sewing machine, overlocker, threads, patterns, fabric so on and so on. Over the years I have never really ‘sorted’ it, I have just added to it over time. Before my move interstate I sold a lot of the fabric etc, but the contents of the cabinet remained the same. (I am now regretting the sale of the other stuff, as my renewed interest in sewing has me realising just how much I could have used it all!)

Anyway, for sometime I had wished that I had the manuals for the machines. I asked mum and she couldn’t recall if she still had them, but dutifully she searched for them. (thanks mum) However no luck. I have searched the internet with little luck of finding manuals for machines of their age. A very kind member of SS scanned her overlocker manual for me, even though not the same machine it was close and could help me out a bit.  So today while cleaning out the sewing cabinet, I was wiping out the sections in the top drawer and thought ‘hmm…this appears to be a tray not a fixed drawer divider’, so I took the drawer out and sure enough the insert was removable. What do you think I found under it!! Yep, you guessed it, the manuals!! Not just the manuals, but a ‘creative overlocking’ book, the warranty for the cabinet, and the original ‘welcome to your new Janome machine’ letter from many many years ago when mum first purchased the machine!

I then rang my mum to tell her I love her for being so organised, I just wish I wasn’t so der and had found it about 14 years earlier!! LOL.

During the course of the phone call I was talking to mum about ‘the button box’ which was in the sewing cabinet. I said ‘I even have the button box, you know the old tobacco box one’. We talked about how it came all the way from England, and was actually my grandfathers. It is very special, and I have always treated it as such. Actually I have never gone through it to ‘sort’ the buttons, because as far as I am concerned it is how it needs to stay. I just couldn’t throw out any of the buttons in it. There are even two very old glass buttons in it.

Mum asked if I could take some pictures of it, so she could see if it looks as she recalls it in her memory….so that is the purpose of this blog. Bet ya didn’t think there was a purpose!! LOL

The top

Inside

Inside the lid

Close up of button mix

Front of box