A Victorian Sewing Machine & More

I am so excited about this lovely sewing machine I can hardly contain myself. I found it at one of our local antique shops, and to be truthful have been eyeing it for months. I have always wanted one that was like this, and will be sharing more about it as time goes by. I am pretty sure it dates prior to 1900 and will be more certain of that once I can get a look at the serial number. As you can see by the title it is a White sewing machine and not a Singer. Unfortunately the only place to fit it in  my present tiny house was under the wide screen t.v., which is why I haven't had a peek at the serial number yet. Yes, I know it was stupid of me to not look at it and get pictures of the machine itself, before my son put the t.v. on top, but the whole mess was clogging up the use of the front door so it was imperative to get the area cleaned up fast.

Now when I bought this, at first I thought, "It isn't so big I can stick it in the back of the Mazda 2", which I was driving. Not even! I and the store folks wheeled the machine out of the store, but no matter how we tried, we simply couldn't get it to fit. Have I mentioned it weighs a ton, since it is made of solid oak and cast iron, and is really unwieldy?! We had to wheel it back into the store and I had to take the twenty minute drive back to my house without it. I was not to be deterred however, so I jumped in our Toyota pickup truck, and away I went back to the store, having first secured some rope, a blanket, and some cardboard with which to strap it into the back of the truck. When I got back, a thin as a pin elderly gent has arrived at the store to help lift it, and the stout young woman behind the counter helped as well. Between the three of us, we didn't have a good solid back between us, but we still managed to lift it into the back of the pickup. I secured it in place with enough rope to keep the Queen Mary docked, and away I went home. I was truly worried about how I was going to get the heavy thing out of the truck when I arrived, but as luck would have it, I got home exactly at the same time as the two fellows putting up sheet-rock in my shop, and they kindly lifted it down and hauled it into the house for me. After they had a good laugh at my forty tons of roping, cardboard, and blanketing. I didn't care, I didn't have to lift and carry that heavy machine again, so was more than willing to sacrifice a bit of my pride for it. Yippy, skippy, I was so happy I could dance! So now it sits with pride in my living room, woo hoo!

As you can see in this picture it is decorated to the nines and has its original finish. I would show you the treadle but the unit for running the t.v. is presently sitting on it. I can assure you on first attempt it did function, so all that I see that it needs is a good oiling and cleaning.

It has these delightful three draws on each side, which are original, even the top ones pull out which I didn't realize until I got it home and could examine it more closely. Great for holding bobbins, scissors, and such.

The second drawer on the right had the original metal parts box with it, as well as this other item I am not sure about. Also the drawer has these little holes built into it that I'm not sure as to what their function is?!

Here is all of the stuff that was in the drawers. See it even has a little oil can, which is the round silver object to the left under the bobbins and beside that wooden handled unknown object. If I had to hazard a guess it might be for sewing leather?

Another lucky thing is that it came with its original sewing machine manual. This I will scan and put up later. It is going to come in really handy because I haven't used a treadle since I was nine years old. Hopefully it will help me figure out how to use all of those fancy extra feet and mechanical devices that came with it?! All in all this is such a beautiful machine and at $95 it was really a bargain. They have numerous sewing machines in the shop, but none this low price and none so beautiful.

The very next day I went off to the 2nd hand shops and this edition of Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales Selected & Illustrated by Lizbeth Zwerger, was done so well I simply couldn't pass it up. It had many of the stories I read as a kid and the artwork was simply wonderful. That and all hardbound books no matter the thickness are just $2.79 in this shop so how could I leave behind such a bargain?!

I couldn't pass up this roll of cute pink wrapping paper for 75 cents. I thought it might come in handy for that special someone who loves the color pink. What do you think?