Stitches in Time

Kind hands, one day in 1892, placed this beautiful, pink sewing kit in Anna’s little girl hands…

We don’t know who the woman behind the kind hands was.  An aunt maybe…a motherly, caring neighbor?

Whoever that good soul was knew that Anna’s mother had died just the year before, and perhaps she needed a little help beginning the life-long love of needlework that she was to have…

Whoever she was,  Anna was very grateful, as is shown in the careful way she used, and kept, and handed-down this sweet memento of her childhood…

And my mother and I are grateful, too.

130 years old now, the little pink sewing kit hangs today in my mother’s room on her armoire…no hiding in a box or cedar chest…heirlooms always out in the open for all to love and touch…{it’s such a gift to FEEL history…}

…loved through the years…a bit threadbare in places, but beautiful, nonetheless.

Here’s my young mother, Karen, about the age that her grandmother, Anna, placed the little pink sewing kit in her little girl hands, about 1949.

Here she’s holding Anna’s childhood doll that I’ve told you about before {even older than the sewing kit!}

 

That early gift of love from Anna to my mother possibly encouraged her love of sewing & creating that she’s enjoyed all of her life…

And then--

When I was a little girl, I remember taking it into my room, sitting on my bed with it, and carefully feeling, with my little girl hands, the softness of the silk, looking through the beautiful blue bead as I held it up to the light streaming through my window--a treasure, carefully kept…

…a silken cord-wrapped bracelet with simple blue glass bead attached…the perfect size for a little girl’s wrist…{I know.  It used to be my little girl wrist that would fit inside.  And Karen’s. And Anna’s.}

 

The lovely pink, silk pouch with bone toggles, and just a little bit of embroidery left to be seen…

That still contains three VERY old pins…

…and the little snips still kept in their own silken pouch…

…still sharp as a razor {I tried them!}

Such a sweet and precious little gift entrusted to one so young…but one who understood and kept it ever so carefully, so that it could be shared with those she would love in the future…

Julie

LiveJournal Tags: sewing kit,Anna Meier Brandley Ostlund,Karen Ostlund Smith