Wish List Machine!

4 years ago I had no idea that there was any other "old" machine besides a Singer. I definitely had no idea there were such beautiful "old" machines. It just wasn't something I thought about.

But now is a different story! I fell head over heels in love with the "old" machines! They are absolutely amazing to me. The fact that many have survived years of abuse and neglect and still sew a perfect stitch is just amazing. Not to mention the fact that they were (and some still are) things of beauty. When I look at the decals on them it makes me wonder why they ever started making plain sewing machines!

My first old machine was a Singer 127 with the shuttle bobbin. Many thanks to some wonderful ladies at TOGA who helped me get her sewing. That machine was promptly named Sally.....don't ask me why but for some reason it reminded me of something my Grannie used to say about "long legged Sally". That is still my favorite machine. I absolutely love to sew on her.

This past week I got a new to me machine. It's one I've been wanting for a couple years but everytime I've seen one for sale it's been more than my "frugal" self was willing to pay. Okay, okay my "cheap" self!  Then I saw the ad on Craigslist......I emailed. No response. I figured it was already sold. Oh well that's normal for me.....a day short and a dollar late. Three days later though the ad showed up again. I emailed again and got a response immediately! So plans were made to make the trip to go get it. I loaded up acouple of the kids and off we went!

When I got there it looked worse than in the pictures. I figured the decals were shot....cabinet definitely was. The cabinet wasn't important though as it would be going in my homemade multi-treadle table.

I brought her home and started cleaning. Three days later and I see decals! Well on the front at least. She actually looks pretty darn good! There is nothing but bare metal beside the shuttle cover which shows she was well loved. I like that.....the lady I bought her from said she belonged to her grandmother. I wonder what she made on this machine to wear the finish off? Did she make clothes or quilts?

I've got about a month to finish getting her cleaned up and then she gets to make her first quilt for me.


If you look close you can see the gunk still on her.......hours and hours of elbow grease still needed!