In which I try out...auctions!

I have always been too intimidated by auctions to take part, but then I met Kari, who is much braver than I am and she has shown me the ropes!  At the flea market a couple of weeks ago, I watched her bid at an auction that was also onsite.  Then, this past Friday we went to another auction and stayed for 3 hours!  It was a hot summer afternoon and I was perfectly content to spend it trying to "win" some of their interesting stuff.

(I photographed this metal pail because my husband was raised on a street called Schlueter, in St. Louis.)

I actually got all the items I bid on, except for the box that had 3 baby christening dresses in it.  (Darn!)  Here is my haul: 4 boxes of mostly vintage sewing stuff!

I really like the middle sewing basket; it is wicker and blue leather, nicely worn, and, interestingly, it locks and came with its key.  I don't think I've ever seen a locking sewing box before!

 

The inside satin was in pretty good shape, too.

But my favorite was this other sewing box, which, along with another cardboard box, had belonged to an avid sewer named Lillian.

As I was going through her collection of sewing notions, I was getting a sense of who she was, and what her life had been like.  She spent time as the wife of a soldier, stationed in Germany.  She sewed her children's clothes there.

She bought a lot of fun German sewing notions;

I especially love this DMC thread (the green label.)

She also had some great buttons, like the carved rose mother-of-pearl buttons!

I was thrilled to find her dusty little tomato pin cushion in the box, too!  (If you can relate to that, then you, too, have the vintage sewing notion bug!)

 I spent so much time thinking about Lillian and her life that by the time I got to her little "handmade by grandma" labels, I felt I knew her, somehow.