Mending

A friend has been sorting out her mother's things, and found a stocking mending kit and other sewing bits and pieces that she has offered to the Knitting & Crochet Guild.

Roz's mother had a collection of stocking mending threads, in a very nice little basket.  I was impressed by the number of different shades of light brown, as well as a pale blue and a pink.  (The photo doesn't show the entire contents of the basket, by the way - there were several other spools of thread in it.)

Roz thought that the basket might have belonged to her grandmother originally.  It has certainly been a long time since stocking-mending was an important part of looking after your appearance - and silk stockings haven't been everyday wear for women since before the Second World War.

The strange object that was in the basket along with the mending threads is called a 'Speedweve'.

We couldn't guess what it was for, but Tom of Holland has one that came with the original instructions, and has very helpfully written a blog post on how to use it.  It's a very clever gadget!

Roz also found a Stocking Ladder Darner - a tiny latchet hook, still in its packaging.  (Critchley Bros. made Wimberdar brand knitting needles and needle gauges, too.)

And a few things that are nothing to do with mending stockings, including a 'War Time Pack' of snap fasteners.

  

The message on the back of one strip reads: 'These Snap Fasteners are of pre-war quality.  The card ONLY is "austerity" in size and style.'

And I especially liked a box of Cash's Woven Initials:

Cash's Woven Name Tapes and Initials have been made for a very long time: I had a set of name tapes when I went to secondary school and every item of clothing was supposed to have a name tape on it.  (They were inspected at the start of every academic year.)  My sister had a set too, and so did my daughter, and you can still get them.  The roll of  'M.W.' tape that Roz's mother had seems unused  - and Roz couldn't think of any family member with those initials, so it's a bit of a mystery.

Other sides of the box advertise more Cash's products:

And I suppose now you could use Cash's name tapes to label your hand-knits.  There's even a knitting-needles-and-ball-of-wool motif  that you can choose on Cash's Designer Labels page. Tempting - except that mostly I knit things for myself, and I already know I knitted them.