I love antique stores and one year as I was roaming around the wilds of North Carolina, I came across this lovely little shop tucked away in a small town south west of Raleigh. Well there isn't an antique shop on this planet that I won't visit, so in I went.
As some of you may know, North Carolina once was the "fabric" mecca of the south. It still is to some extent but not nearly what it once was. As this industry declined and factories closed over the years, old thread spools and bobbins that had been languishing, forgotten, in the back storerooms began showing up in thrift shops and antique stores.
Well being a sewer and a lover of anything vintage, when I spotted a bunch of them sitting in a large basket on the floor of this little shop, so lost, forgotten and forlorn LOL, I just had to have them. I scooped up a number of them from the basket and, clutching them tightly to my bosom, headed for the cash register.
"Whatcha gonna do with all these here spools ma'am?" asked the sweet little old fellow behind the counter. "They is from the factory that closed here 'bout ten years ago and been sittin' in that basket ever since!"
"Don't know yet." I replied. "I am a sewer and I just like them. Maybe I'll put them in my sewing room."
Fast forward a couple of years.
I needed a small lamp for a little niche area I had created in our living room. I had scoured every store in town but still hadn't found one that I liked. Feeling rather frustrated and impatient at not finding what I wanted, I decided to clean up my sewing room. Yep, that's one of my ways that I work frustration and impatience out... I clean!
All those thread spools and bobbins were sitting on a shelf in my sewing room... artfully arranged I might add... and as I picked up one of the large thread spools, it suddenly came to me that I could make a lamp out of these spools and bobbins. The thread colour on the bobbins was perfect! A quick trip to the hardware store for the electrical bits. A side trip to the local lampshade place and my project was underway. A rummage through my ribbon to tie the bobbins together on the thread spool and by that evening my new lamp was sitting on my antique sewing machine. It sits on a little table today, many years later, and I still love it!
Now if I could just get that "inventive" about all the other stuff languishing in my multiple stashes around the house!! LOL
Have you got any ideas about a project one could make using old thread spools? Please share...
Cheers,
Sharon