A box of memories - encouragement from the beyond?
Courtesy photo Erin Looney, of Post Falls, stands Thursday with a sewing kit she found in a Spokane thrift store during a recent lunch break. The kit belonged to her mom, who died in 1998. Looney said she was drawn to the gold box and could not believe it still contained specific items that it held while her mom was alive, despite being sold with a storage unit and disappearing for nearly 20 years.
An unopened riveting kit, a Knott's Berry Farm jelly jar filled with buttons and blue rubber bands are specific items Erin Looney found in a tin in a thrift store in Spokane on Wednesday, making her 99 percent certain that this cookie-tin-turned-sewing-kit belonged to her mom, who died of cancer in 1998. The sewing kit disappeared when her belongings were sold with a storage unit about 20 years ago. (Courtesy photo)
This unique gold-colored tin caught Erin Looney's eye on Wednesday, when she opened it and discovered it to be her late mom's old sewing kit. This is especially meaningful for the Post Falls woman, who has been missing her mom around the holidays and needing a little push to follow through on plans to get into clothing design. "I just felt like that was my mom saying, 'Hey, you can do this. Here’s my sewing kit, go do this,'" Looney said. (Courtesy photo)
By DEVIN WEEKS
Staff Writer
Something caught Erin Looney's eye on Wednesday.
She was in a small thrift store in Spokane, just browsing in the sewing section while killing time on her lunch break.
"I wasn't really looking for anything," she said Thursday afternoon. "I glanced over and I saw this gold rectangular tin. I was like, 'No way.' I've never seen another one like this."
Skeptical but curious, she opened it. The tin, which once contained cookies, was indeed a box filled with sewing items, much like one she knew from her youth.
"Something just stopped me," she said. "I thought, 'I should just go through it.'"
A few unfamiliar items were inside, but most were things she knew — a jelly jar filled with buttons, a riveting kit, an old tape measure.
"I was still really skeptical, like, 'No, this is just a coincidence," said Looney, of Post Falls. "I was just going to buy it and prove it to myself later."
She brought it home that night and more closely examined the contents. She couldn't ignore the details as memories flooded her mind — the jelly jar was a Knott's Berry Farm jelly jar, the riveting kit was unopened, the tape measure was made in West Germany.
And the rubber bands holding everything together were blue.
"My mom used to buy stalks of celery that had these blue rubber bands and she would hang them on a doorknob in the kitchen," Looney said. "There's a pin box that there's also a rubber band around ... There's this baggie of these really large yarn needles she would use to stitch the slip covers on our couch so they would stay."
Looney was in disbelief as she looked through everything. The strip of elastic was held together with one of the blue celery bands. The riveting kit, she remembered, was never opened because her mom was going to make her dad a Western-style shirt but never did. The odd T-shaped pins she found in the box were always a staple of her mom's sewing tools.
"The fact that it's a Knott's Berry Farm jar is like, 'That's my mom,'" she said. "I am 99 percent sure this is my mom's sewing box."
Looney was a teenager when the tin came into her life about 30 years ago. It was originally a gift from her grandmother, who filled it with delicious petit fours (bite-size confections).
During that time, she lived with her mom in Hagerman, a small town in southern Idaho. When she was only 23, Looney’s mom died of cancer.
"During high school, I would say that my mom was my best friend," Looney said. "We did everything together."
She said her mom, Barbara Hauck, always "knew things."
"She knew when things were going to happen," she said. "I got in a car accident when I was 19. She called me before I left and said, 'Please, please, please put on your seat belt.’ I said I'd be fine, and that afternoon I got in a car accident and rolled the car. Things like that have always been my mom."
Looney was by her mom's side during her cancer battle. She inherited most of her mom's possessions, which were kept in a storage unit that was eventually sold around 1999.
That was the last time she saw any of her mom's belongings, including the sewing kit her mom used all the time.
"I’ve really been missing her the last couple months," Looney said. "Christmas kills me, and to have it be there, it was a gift."
Looney has been considering going into clothing design but hasn't really had the confidence or motivation. She said she was just drawn to the box, and she's not surprised that it happened to be her mom's sewing kit, all these years later.
It's just the little reminder and nod of encouragement she needed.
"I just felt like that was my mom saying, 'Hey, you can do this,'" she said. "'Here’s my sewing kit. Go do this.'"