I’ve been thinking about collecting. Why do it? Why isn’t one enough?
Some think it’s driven by an ancient hunter gatherer urge to collect nuts and berries. It makes sense. One hazelnut doesn’t make much of a meal.
The Victorians were big collectors, driven by a boom in museum-going and a national passion for nature.
Some collecting urges have changed whole economies.
Modern collections of everyday, even throwaway objects can be just as beautiful.
Some old wine glasses and the odd bowl of pebbles aren’t going to threaten the treasury. Surely I have enough of each and yet I still get excited by finding a hagstone. There aren’t any witches round here as far as I know and the glasses are too delicate to use very often.
Mysterious
Me (experiment with pencil drawing on shrinkles)
Inherited from Aunty Minnie (Victorian silver)
Crafty Rie, from the Flowerpress brooch swap – thankyou!
My badge and brooch collection makes a little more sense. Many were made by bloggers and I wear them daily. I own something they have made, however small. Life’s busy so I can’t meet them in person as often as I’d like, if at all. They help me remember some good days when we did meet. They’re precious.
Lucie, Sasha and Elisabeth (made from a vintage plate), cornflower from RSPB
What do you collect?
Yarn and lots of it – probably far to much to knit in the next 10 years, and knitting needles, and buttons, and shoes, and scarves and mittens, and old china… in fact I do think I'm a bit of a hoarder, without my husband's influence I'd live in a house packed to the gunwales with a load of old tat! Love your brooch collection x
What a lovely post, I have always loved badges and brooches, I find them so easy to wear, I make and sell loads as well…. Love all the links as well 🙂
Sue Xxx
What a beautiful collection you have! I seem to collect house magazines, every cupboard or drawer my husband opens…out fall a few more..ooops!
happy Friday…
nattie x
What a lovely post.
hm. what do i collect? you mean besides seashells, pebbles &stones?
miniature watering cans
tiny wood boats (i covet the big ones)
doilies made by my ancestors and my mother
fun socks
Lovely post and beautiful collection
What a fun collection Ms. Pebble. I love how each brooch reminds you of someone fun and important in your life!
Funny – I was just thinking about 'the need to acquire' which women seem to have more than men, and deciding it was to do with the difference between gathering (lots of little things collected every day) and hunting (one big prize every now and then does the trick). I see the Economist got there ahead of me!
I have done me a bit of gathering today – I added to my French fabric-covered box collection! I shall do a post about them and what's in them one of these days…
And I shall also follow up on your shard of pottery brooch, as I like that style very much indeed.
Lovely post – thanks!
Oh, I love it! A plethora of memories and friendships in those badges.
Love your collection. I find myself collecting odd things like the feathers from our cockerel because they are so beautiful I can't throw them away; security envelopes because I like the inside and then there is my growing Orla Kiely bag collection which is a dangerous addiction.
I love your badge and brooch collection, adorable! I haven't really got any proper collections though I do have an urge to start one – I've been saying 'I want to collect something' for ages now! haha… It's not like I don't have enough stuff, it's just all a bit random! xx
And a lovely collection you have too 🙂 So nice you have such wonderful memories attached to them all too. x
I think we collect for a whole variety of reasons, but memories of friends are among the best!
your collection is lovely x
What do I collect hmmm lets see, sea glass , wool, hagstones too , wool, magazines , wool can you see a pattern here ?
Brooches!
Wow, I love 'Monica's' brooch!
My childhood collection? The big box of Smurfs which are now all the rage again and which my Dad dug out and brought for my own kids to enjoy!
Well, not badges and brooches … yet! But I do collect shells, sea-glass, pebbles, driftwood, unusual buttons, bits of ribbon (!?), jam jars, the list goes on. What's it all about.
What gorgeous brooches 😀
I collect glass buttons – but you know that – and old books – totally eclectically, anything that takes my fancy and doesn't cost too much – and yes, yarn 🙂 I also have a fair few lovely things that would be the start of a collection if only I could afford to buy more of them!
I collect inkwells, candlesticks, fountain pens, sterling silver crochet hooks, Shawnee corn pottery.. a lot more too. 🙂
((hugs)), Teresa 🙂
Such beautiful images! In the past I have collected lovely antique editions of children's literature…LM Montgomery, Louisa Alcott and Kate Douglas Wiggin. They were familiar and comforting 'friends' as our household went back and forth across the Atlantic.
I have a beautiful pin from my 100 year old grandmother. Hmm…maybe the start of a new collection!
They're all lovely – and collecting lovely things is surely a marvellous thing to do?!
Love your collection Emma! Paintings are my weakness, but acquisition has to be balanced by lack of space and the creation of clutter I find! x
You are the best-accessorized person I have ever known. And I LOVE your shrinkie experiment.
I think I collect blog lady friends. What could be better? But yes, also vintage linens. And books. Rosebushes, yarn, fabric…sheesh.
Love your brooches. 🙂
I collect anything to do with bunnies! Oh and yarn, I have way to much of that!!! 😉
Vivienne x
I confess I have a Brooch Positional Issue. Even though I have accumulated a small collection, also from excellent bloggy types, I never know precisely WHERE to put 'em. Sometimes I give it a whirl, spend 20 minutes locating a mm to the left, up a smidge, rotate 10 degrees. Then I walk out of the house and feel like every person I happen upon is smothering giggles at the Eccentric Middle-aged Lady Who Wears A Brooch Over Her Left Nipple.
Logging an official request for a 'positional' post, please.
Dear Emma,
Where has the time gone? I cannot believe I haven't visited your blog yet.
A beautiful post which has got me thinking. What do I collect? Craft books? Yarn? To be honest I think I collect anything which helps me try to create beauty.
Have a lovely creative week.
Stephanie
ps I am quite partial to collecting snowdrops too 😉
To thank you for inspiring me so much when we met in the real world yesterday I'd love to add to your brooch collection with Nanny Gertie's flower brooch. Give me an idea of colours you would like and its yours.
What a lovely collection Emma. I love the last one the blue & white seachina I think. and the 'Emma' one too, and the embroidered ones…. hmm!
I think my answer to your question might be what don't I collect! Anything and everything to do with knitting and sewing I LOVE old sewing boxes, and boxes of buttons. China of all sorts, old pressed glass, pebbles, sea glass and sea china, and dried weed and flower heads! Fabric, wool, just stuff with a capital S!!!
CKx
I collect yarn and anything from the sea. I'd never even seen the sea until I was in my 20s, so it holds this amazing, breathless captivation for me. Everytime we go, I stuff my pockets with pebbles and seaglass and shells. Recently, I discovered sea pottery and I am just hooked..even when my DH teases me that some of the white stuff if probably from someone's ceramic toilet!