We love vintage sewing supplies. I was taught to sew by my mother and grandmother and vintage supplies always takes me back in time. I loved sorting through my Mum’s sewing box and finding buttons and supplies for making dolls clothes and other small sewing projects. Dorcas dressmakers pins in their blue tins with a concave lid, were an iconic part of sewing boxes in the UK, Australia and around the world. I have found a few Dorcas tins on Etsy and eBay.
I discovered that Dorcas pins were manufactured by D F Tayler & Co in Birmingham, England. In 1880 they acquired a machine for making 200,000 pins per day. By 1900 they had 60 of these machines making 12 million pins per day. Their specialties were dressmakers pins, hair pins, safety pins, hooks and eyes, fasteners and novelties of all kinds in pins. They became associated with Newey Brothers in 1949, who were manufacturers of Hooks and Eyes; snap Fasteners; Hair Pins; Buckles; Corset and Suspender Fittings; and more. (Reference: Graces Guide to British Industrial History)
If you love vintage sewing supplies, check out our article – Ultimate Resource for Vintage Haberdashery Lovers.
What vintage sewing supplies do you love?
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my gosh – I’m sure mum still has these lurking around…………
Hope you find them! They bring back so many childhood memories for me. Hope you share a photo of yours over on instagram for a chance to win!
Those tins are lovely. My grandad was the sewer in my family but the only supplies I ever saw of his was his button tin. I still have many of his buttons. I dont have instagram, shame as I’d like to see all the vintage supplies people still have.
I ended up here because I found a tin for 50p at a car boot (sadly without original pins – it was holding eyelets instead) and wanted to do some research! Thanks so much for this!
I’ve put my own (modern) pins in there for now.
How do you open the tin? It says press on the lid and body but my very resourceful wife cannot open the tin (and nor can i) but we know the tin opens because it was open before we bought it
Do you know where the name Dorcas came from?
Thanks
My understanding is that the pins were named in reference to Dorcas, mentioned in the Bible (Acts, chapter9) as someone who made clothes for charity. She had died and some local women were showing Peter examples of the clothing she made for others.