Needle packs: Too classy for sewing

When my auction buddy Janet saw a needle pack among others on an auction table recently, she hunted me down to tell me that it was one that she wanted. She knew that I tended to snap up vintage sewing items.

I bought the lot, and she got her Acme supermarket needle pack.

It was one of the plainer ones I’d seen, with the company’s name emblazoned on both sides of the folded cover and a simple line drawing of a woman with a shopping cart buying groceries. It had been made in Germany.

Many of the packs – or needle books, as they are also called – are usually more colorful and decorative. For me, the highlight of the packs are their lovely lithographs, such as the USS Iowa on the Army and Navy Needle Book, or the pilgrims and Native Americans at Plymouth. Most still have all of their needles in them, indicating that the owners were collecting rather than using them. Even today, people are drawn to the strong illustrations, including the writer of the blog Seesaw, where you can see examples in her collection. 

 
Today, I’m blogging about old sewing items, in particular needles packs. Yesterday, I wrote about needle cases, used to store needles and other items. You don’t find these works of art on needle packaging in fabric stores these days. Now, they’re very utilitarian.

Some of the classier old ones were used by companies to market their products to sewers. The packs were either giveaways or could be purchased. 

Several of mine are from the Colonial Life Insurance Co., including one of a little girl with her doll and the title “A Stitch in Time.” Inside, the company urged you to contact them for a policy on retirement, family protection, educational funds, mortgage redemption and business insurance. “Like all good needles,” the pack intoned on the back cover, “the Colonial policies have fine points.”

You’ll find many packs with women on the covers (since they were from another era, you won’t likely find any black women). Needles of several sizes were encased inside, many times on colored foil. I also have plain packs with needles only, all made in England, with names like Brabant’s, Milward and Susan Bates.

I found by Googling that in the 19^th century, the center of needle manufacturing was a town called Redditch, England. Today, there’s a museum there, Forge Mill Needle Museum, that recounts the area’s needle-making and fishing-tackle industries.