Emery powder....what is it anyway?

Emery powder is...what is it?  It's part history, part sewing notion, part necessary for sharpening needles and pins. It's part of an "Emery"...that ubiquitous little strawberry attached to that tomato pincushion (and I'll talk about that tomato in another post). Those little strawberry Emeries are usually filled with white sand, but the REAL emery powder is actually corundum. Now we really come to a conundrum...(couldn't resist that). Corundum is, according to one dictionary definition, "an extremely hard mineral, aluminum oxide sometimes containing iron, magnesia, or silica, that occurs in gem varieties such as ruby and sapphire and in a common black, brown, or blue form used chiefly in abrasives."

Emery powder has an interesting history and I do like the historical background of needlework tools. A brief history of emery powder: knives and swords back in what we know today as the Middle East were made of iron that rusted. The blades were polished to remove the rust with emery powder. The use of emery powder slowly spread west to Europe and was in wide use in France in the late Middle Ages. Back then all pins and needles were completely hand made and therefore were extremely expensive, so those folks that were lucky enough to own a few pins or needles took real good care of them with emery! They even carried small tins around filled with pins and needles and some emery powder, where the vibrations of normal movement kept the polishing going.

Emery powder can come in many colors but this one is Berryhill Heirlooms Authentic Emery Powder (store.berryhillheirlooms.com/beheauem.html ) and as you can see above its brownish. I imported the emery powder from Turkey and had it specially ground to be just the right grit: fine and powdery, so much so that the powder needs to be put into an emery bag. The emery bag is then inserted into a cover. This is to make sure the emery powder doesn't leak out of the Emery. Emeries come in all shapes and sizes. Some come with caps made from various metals, bone or wood. Or they can sit in a base made of the same type of materials. An Emery can just be a square bag, but so many were made into decorated bags.

Here is an example of two Emeries that I designed and sell as kits www.berryhillheirlooms.com/victorianemery1.html. The Emery Cover is hand embroidered and beaded. The tops have machine pin stitched, gathered French cotton lace sewn on and they're all prettily tied up with silk satin ribbon. Now wouldn't you love to have these little beauties in your sewing box or make some other interesting Emeries for yourself or a friend?