Is it the case that so many sewing notions were produced (since sewing was such an integral part of women's everyday lives) that they haven't all been catalogued yet? Unlike cars...
Even when I was a little kid in the '60s, it was common enough to sew a button back on, if not to make an actual piece of clothing, but sewing was mostly a chore or a rather dweeby hobby.
I was surprised when fiber arts became cool in the 21st century--especially knitting, which was something fusty grandmothers did in my generation.
I wondered if its new popularity had something to do with how little off-keyboard handwork anybody does anymore that results in a tactile thing.
I saw this idea reflected in Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam (2013). I picked it up after mentioning her novel Handmaid's Tale that had scared me so much as a young woman. This is plenty scary too--it's the last of her trilogy about life on Earth after biological terrorism (created to cleanse the Earth of human chaos) wipes out most humans, and it's full of the wonderful inventiveness that I like in u-/dystopias about our future.
But before the human wipe-out, she writes (p. 169), there was a revival of live carnival attractions, acrobats, and musicians:
"The online world became more and more pre-edited and slicked up, and ... the rough unpolished physical world was taking on a mystic allure ....
...Displays of skill lacked tangibility in the digital realm and were therefore distrusted: how could you tell it wasn't just special effects? But when the Floating World magician put a handful of needles in his mouth you could see they were real needles, and when they emerged threaded you could touch the thread...."
