Monday, November 27, 2017

For National Pins and Needles Day

pins in a pink silk pincushion


safety pins and packages of needles in a Shaker-style box


CAT needle-book cover

CAT needle-book with needles inside


two stacks of Dritz plastic needle boxes


ball of crochet cotton used as a pincushion for pins and needles

I take pins and needles for granted:  I can buy either or both whenever the need arises, or even before I need them.  It hasn't always been so.  In 1826, Anna Brooke Briggs moved with her husband and children from Maryland to Columbiana County, Ohio, when it was very nearly a wilderness.  The family members in Maryland who received her letters saved them and they have been published in American Grit:  A Woman's Letters from the Ohio Frontier, edited by Emily Foster.  This section of Anna's April 5, 1835, letter to her sisters and mother reminds me to be grateful for how easy it is for me to buy pins and needles.
There is one thing—would be much obliged to some of you, for I cannot get any good needles at any of the stores nor never could since I came out.  My stock has given out except the numbers 9 and 10; I have plenty of them.  Now, if Mother and each of you would stick 3 needles, No. 6, 7, and 8, in your next letter, why it would make a dozen—and it would accommodate me much.

"Pins and Needles" was a Broadway play produced by the International Ladies Garment Workers' Union in 1937.  You can read more about the "holiday" and a little about the play here.

Happy National Pins and Needles Day, 2018.

--Nancy.
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10 comments:

  1. Those pics turned out really well. Happy pins and needles day! Where would we be without them?!

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    1. Thanks, Brenna. I don't know what I'd do without pins and needles -- no clothes, no curtains/pillows/etc., no fun!

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  2. What a sweet little post about something so vital yet underappreciated for the most part. At the old place we had hawthorn bushes whose thorns were used for needles by the pioneers and when I lived in the far north with the Inuit, the women would use certain caribou bones as needles. They actually used every single part of the animal in one way or another.
    Funny how we all get to favour one needle or another too. Thanks for this enjoyable read this morning.

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    1. Thank you, Jocelyn. I have heard of using both thorns and bones for needles but it's hard to imagine turning them into needles fine enough to stitch through cotton and not break when making a hole for the thread! The pioneers and the Inuit (and many other people) are amazing.

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  3. We take so much for granted. Thanks for sharing that sweet glimpse back into the past!!

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    1. Thanks, Jennie. We do take lots of things for granted, don't we? We live in a land that's so plentiful and at a time when for most people the plenty is easy to get.

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  4. Replies
    1. You're welcome, Kevin. I'm always interested to find out how people who lived a century or more ago managed doing the things we do today (usually so easily).

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  5. Very interesting story--we are so lucky to have so many choices available to us!

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    1. Thanks, Karen. I agree. We live in a land of plenty with many options to choose from. Sometimes it's hard to choose!

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