The needle threader: the objects from the past that were used by our grandmothers when they learned how to sew
The fast and progressive advance of technology in every area of life is making our everyday lives "easier" and more immediate; from cell phones to PCs, from new forms of communication, to the latest hyper-galactic models of household appliances. New technology on the one hand will certainly make life easier, but on the other hand it erases old traditions, grandma's remedies, everything that in the past could be done and implemented in practice without the help of new technological progress.
It is no coincidence that especially the newest generations of young people do not know how to undertake more complex household tasks, or they have no idea how everyday life was in the past and what tools were used. Many of today's young people certainly won't remember the so-called "needle threader". These disused tools, which had the distinct shape of a sparkling coin or a brooch, were used to pass thread through the eye of a needle.
Much used in the past by women who wanted to learn to work with needle and thread, these objects that today we would call "vintage" were present in the homes of many families.
Over time, needle threader has taken on many different shapes, yet in the past years that will never return, many homes had these extraordinary objects with the shape similar to a coin or a brooch in the everyday sewing kit of mothers, or grandmothers: along with a needle, a tape measure, scissors, pins and pincushions!
Objects of a past that will never return, in a contemporary reality in which the art of sewing at home is increasingly rarely passed on from grandmother to mother, and from mother to daughter. The needle threader is certainly a tool that is no longer used, hidden inside some grandmother's dusty container, but which in its apparent banality holds a treasure of memories and wisdom of past traditions that is always nice to remember once in a while.
