I had a chance to visit  the Morris Museum in NJ and was wandering around their extensive collection of vintage music boxes and automatons when I discovered these two musical sewing boxes. You can see the gorgeous sewing tools in the open one, but the information on the closed one said that it contained scissors, a thimble, a needle, and an EAR SPOON for collecting earwax to rub on the thread to make it go through the eye of the needle easier! (There was also a quilt exhibit, but, honestly, this trumped that in my mind.)

I love the beautiful golden tools.  Wonder what the bottle is for.  Medicinal spirits??

 

I so wanted to be able to open this to see the earwax spoon!

The Christmas house mini is finally finished.  I think it's cheerful and hope that lots of people try to win it in the upcoming raffle at our guild quilt show.  Since I just finished it, I am very aware of its imperfections.  Looking at the photo, I see that it isn't square.  How can that be??  I squared it just before I added the binding, and carefully stitched the binding on with a quarter inch seam.  I think I'll have to fool with it a bit more.  Darn!