From Stage Costuming by Agnes Brooks Young, 1927.

From St. Nicholas, 1885.

From The Like-To-Do Stories by Laura Rountree Smith and illustrated by L. Kate Deal, 1920.

Feeling needled.  From Montclair's 1979 yearbook.

The pin brothers.  From Sandman Twilight Stories by Abbie Phillips Walker and illustrated by Rhoda C. Chase, 1918.

Today's enchanted darning needle and bodkin dancing the polka are from Homespun Stories by Clara Denton, 1924.

From an ad for J. & P. Coats' Spool Cotton, c. 1880.

From 1887.

From 1887.

"Death and life … one thread broken" -- two chapter titles from Strange Threads by J. Douglas, 1888.  [In memory of my magic teacher, Eugene Burger.]

Stringing a garland of tiny gentlemen, from c. 1878.

From c. 1890.

"The spider and the tiger," c. 1890.

From our collection of Magic Words & Symbols Spotted in the Wild:

In the late 1800s, the J & P. Coats thread company released Tarot-like trade cards.

The symbolism here is rather blatant — the rooster is the male principle who engendered a newborn spool of cotton thread.  As someone once said, "Wool makes yarn; flax makes linen; cotton makes cotton."  From c. 1890.