Friday, March 30, 2012

Del Rey B.'s Jar

Are you ready for some F U N ?  Today I found a wonderful treasure at one of our local antique shops.  It was a giant jar of really neat vintage sewing items.  Just look at that lid!  Did the owner of this jar catch a caterpillar and watch it turn into a beautiful butterfly one day?


I am supposing the jar belonged to 
Del Rey B. because her name is written on the back of
a ruler... So whether all these goodies were hers or her
mother's, grandmother's or her daughter's, I am calling it Del Rey B.'s Jar.


I could hardly stand the excitement... hours later I am still smiling!
So I decided it would be fun to have a little c o n t e s t !
The person who guesses the exact amount of items in the jar will win a cool prize!
I'm not sure what the prize will be yet, but it will be inspired
by vintage and thriftiness and chosen or made especially for the winner!

The rules are simple:
You can guess once.  
If more than one person guesses the correct number, we will have a random drawing of those who guessed it right on the nose.

Sound fun?  OK! Let's do it!!

The jar is gallon sized.

I will give you a few more photos to look at so you 
can make a good guess!
The view above will be one side and here are the three other
quarter turns of the jar:



Bottom of the jar...

Top...

It was such a neat thing to empty the jar and pull the contents out one by one... I will even go as far as saying reverent because I can imagine how precious things such as needles and scissors were so many years ago. Most of us have no idea what it is like to go without and feel driven to save every little scrap. 

This ball of string is many little pieces of string all wound together. I have heard stories about people who saved bits of string, but I have never actually seen one of these balls. It has stirred up lots of thoughts about excess, re-purposing & not wasting...


I am fascinated that she would have saved a small length of tan thread and wrapped it over the blue - just in case she might need it later.

This needle case is beautiful!


 Are you catching a few "clues"?  The jar was not filled with as many buttons as I thought it would be.

One other tip... if the needles or items were in a package, it counted as one item. I only counted loose items, except a couple of button cards that had a few buttons on them- each button was counted. If a needle was tucked into a spool of thread, I counted it, too!

 Good luck with your guess! 
The contest will be open until April 12th at 6:00 PM mountain time.

Use it up, wear it out.
Make it do or do without.




6 comments:

Gayle said...

Wow Leisa! What a wonderful treasure you found - I envy you. One of my favorite sewing finds was a cookie tin full of old buttons that I got at a yard sale - some of the buttons were strung on string - with a big darning needle still attached. I could just see a small child working on it while visiting at Grandma's house!

OK - my guess for your giveaway is that there are 77 items in your jar!

Unknown said...

I love old sewing notions and goodies! I guess 58!

Karen said...

MMMmmmmm I guess 142 items. Leisa this gives me faith in Karma. There is justice in the world when you find a treasure like this. Some granddaughter just couldn't find the space to store this in her super streamlined modern home, so I am glad it found a good home in the Black Sheep Woolens studio. I expect to see some cool green rick rack in one of your projects in the near future. I have some treasures from my mother like this that are still waiting for me to use in some fabulous project, but I am starting to think my daughters will have to do the using......

Shauna said...

I guess 167 and I especially loved the little yellow barrette. Have fun with this contest.

The Jacklins said...

I love it!! I love that you found it! It reminds me all of Grandma Flinders! I am taking your lucky number and guessing 111! :)

Steph said...

I guess 80 and Janae guesses 90.