Sewing Machines

What do you buy the woman who has everything for Christmas? This was the dilemma my husband faced this year.

I have embarked on this quest to grow my own, cook my own, make my own and be a lot greener. Although he's not on board with all the things I've got going on he does respect the fact that I wouldn't want mindless gifts that I'd never use and end up giving away to charity.

He kept asking and asking; "what would you like?" and my reply was always very vague, so off he trotted to ebay...

And here's what he came up with...

A beautiful antique Singer sewing machine, in working order, via the hand crank on the side.  The chap he brought it from said it was 1940's-50's, but after we had looked up the serial number on the Singer website it appears to be 1895!

It sits on a cheaply made wood and mdf base - which is probably where the 1940's bit comes into it.

I did a bit of searching online for Singer machines of that era and found this picture of what it would have looked like on it's original tressle table.  I was expecting a swivel table but this one is called a Coffin Top!

Now funnily enough, years ago when we first moved into this house, we visited the local furniture warehouse to look at dining room furniture and they had a portacabin full of house clearance items.  After we'd brought a lovely dark solid wood table with hidden leaf and 6 chairs, including 2 carvers for a bargain £330 and a dresser with plate rack and a corner unit aswell, we noticed a singer sewing machine table in the corner.  My lovely Nan brought it for us as a house warming gift to go in our conservatory as a plant table.  It is the exact same cast iron base as pictured above but ours has a white marble top, not the original wooden one with drawers - if it had it wouldn't have been so cheap that's for sure!  I will endeavour to take a photo of it and post it here for you to see.
And back to my christmas story...
then in the evening when we were all sitting around discussing sewing, (or rather learning to!) he gave me his credit card and told me to get online and order a new machine while I was at it so that I could have a proper manual and learn properly! What a gem he is!

Even before new year the January Sales started. I found a Toyota sewing machine, originally priced at £349 at half price.  It had lots of accessories and freebies with it and had lots of different stitches so I clicked 'add to basket' and on I went to checkout my purchase...

During the checkout process a note pops up 'use this code for an extra 20% off', so I typed the code in and bob's your uncle my sewing machine was only £124! And here she is

And I have to add here that I was very impressed with the very little packaging it had. The box, 2 pieces of polystyrene and 2 polythene bags with extras/accessories in, which were very clearly labelled so I know i can recycle them. Well done Toyota! I'll keep the box and polystyrene until the guarantee is expired and then one will be recycled and the other broken up to go in the bottom of plant pots for drainage!

Happy sewing days ahead!