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37 Summerheath Rd
Hailsham, BN27 3DS

C is for Cotton Reels

Secret Society 2021-22

C is for Cotton Reels

Alison Owens

My Sylko cabinet gifted to me by Phil. I love filling it up with my Sylko finds and don’t they look handsome!

My Sylko cabinet gifted to me by Phil. I love filling it up with my Sylko finds and don’t they look handsome!

C for Cotton Reels

Block Size 8 x 6 ins
Cut your backing fabric to 9½ x 7½ ins

I have a penchant for a wooden cotton reel and have been collecting them for ages. Then I found a Sylko collectors club on line where you can get list of numbers of all the Sylkos ever made, I’m not obsessed with it (honestly), but as a keen car booty gal if I find any I’ll tick them off the list. It just so happens that I was given a sylko shop cabinet as a present from Phil many years ago and my lovely collection fits in there perfectly!

I think we all take these little lovelies for granted so for a bit of history here are my top 10 Cotton thread and reel facts:

  1. Early sewing threads were made out of animal hides by cutting them into thin strips. Egyptians were expert at making threads from plant fibres wool and animal hair. Threads were spun using spindles.

  2. Thread is made up of a number of plies or cords , a thread on its own is too weak so a number of threads are plied together to create a stronger thread , hence 2 ply or three ply.

  3. 1730 cotton thread was first spun by machinery and spread quickly like wildfire across the colonies

  4. Seamstresses had cotton thread for the first time , before that they had silk or linen. The cotton thread was sold in hanks not reels.

  5. 1820 thread came on wooden reels that could be returned and refilled.

  6. 1812 Patrick and James CLARK open the first thread factory in Paisley ,Scotland

  7. 1815 James COATES opened another thread making factory

  8. 1820 John DEWHURST produced a mercerised cotton in Kirby MALHAM, which is a thread that has been treated to make it stronger.

  9. 1840 With the development of sewing machines , threads had to change and become stronger and this resulted in an explosion of different Types of thread .

  10. The nursery song “wind the bobbin up’ originated in the cotton mill towns of the north of England in Victorian times .

Download Mandy’s Cotton Reel Fact here

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