Vintage

My parents have a fondness for antiquing. They like to go poke around shops and shows for treasures. My mother hunts for dishes and silver (she has two collections she is working on finishing, piece by piece) and my father just looks for whatever catches his eye.

Well. I must have trained him well. They came home today from two days spent enjoying the Brimfield Antique Show with this:

That’s three cones of various amounts of wool, eight skeins of wool, two of tussah silk (labeled for weaving, actually), three of “irish lace”, and two and change of a cotton/linen blend.

All that for two dollars.

I know. My dad’s awesome, isn’t he? I have already determined that he shall receive a Christmas present constructed from some of this haul.

Let’s get some close ups:

And tucked in with all of this was this label, ripped of what appeared to be butcher paper — maybe wrapping from a package?

It’s a little clue about this stash — perhaps this Mrs. Olmstead was the owner? Or maybe the owner bought something from her. There’s really no way to tell, but it’s so intriguing to wonder.

Everything smells musty, like the cardboard box it came in, and there’s a faint whiff of mothballs to it, so my first order of business is going to be reskeining everything in order to give it a proper soak. After it’s all clean and ready to move in with the rest of my stash (which is starting to outgrow its home) then we can truly get down to business.

When I told my dad that I was going to blog his find and it would make him the most popular father-of-a-knitter ever, he laughed. I don’t think he quite believed me.