My Latest Arrival

I had a lovely delivery today...

My friends mum was getting rid of it and so I offered her a few pennies to give it a new home where it will be loved and appreciated. I works! and comes with spare belts etc.

And by the way... I have RSI but replace the usual 'S' for 'snipping'!

Wednesday's Car Boot Finds

It was overcast with a chilly wind so not much of a show at the car boot sale this morning, but I did get a 3 drawer organiser which is now the new home of my rubber stamps and inks, a pretty pink gingham single bedcover which I thought would be nice for a girly quilt backing and...

A coffin top for my antique singer sewing machine!!! How rare a find is that! The picture below shows an 1895 table, and that's when my machine dates to, so now I have the cast iron treadle, the machine and the coffin top - all brought seperately, just need a wooden top with drawers now... highly unlikely but you never know!

Lucas (No 1 son) also wants me to tell you that he got a Buzz Lightyear dressing up costume with his £1!

My Crafty Corner continued...

A while back I blogged about my dining room being my sewing space and how I wanted to tidy out a cluttered corner for my fabrics etc to go, and look what hubby helped me do this afternoon

My Singer sewing machine table has been hoovered off and brought in from the conservatory and already the UK shaped organiser has been hung and put to use

P.s. In the country I am based roughly between the red and green ribbons on the bottom shelf! :o)

I'm linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced today, how about you?

New Projects this week: 0
Completed Projects this week: 0
In progress: 1 (Lily's QAL Dresden)

Sunday Sewing Space #1

I love looking at other peoples spaces, seeing their eye for colour or design, and seeing as my sewing space is fast becoming the place I spend the most time I thought I would look around for posts on other peoples sewing spaces (or rooms if you're really lucky) just to get ideas for design and storage of course (!?!) and look what I found...

Over at 13 Woodhouse Road there was a whole series of blog posts dedicated to exactly this subject! Sadly it's over now and I just haven't got enough of looking in other peoples drawers! So I thought I would share mine with you and if anyone else would like to participate you could send me all the details of your space and I'll blog it on a Sunday...

So here I am, going first... brace yourselves! I'm a very untidy, hoarding, clutterbug of a Cancerian!

Here is my sewing (dining?) table.

I have piles of fabric on the table, under the table, on chairs...

Two thirds of the table are taken up with my machine, fabrics and work in progress, leaving the far left for cutting.

Leading off from our dining room is the conservatory which has been filled up with clutter over the wintertime in the hope of doing a car boot sale. Can you see what's nestled there...my singer sewing machine table.

I'd like to bring it in and put it here

All the clutter on the floor in that corner has not been looked at for months so I reckon it can be liberated! And then I could replace the fabric covered chair for a fabric covered Singer table!

My table has a white marble top rather than the traditional wooden one and my Singer machine was only just given to me this Christmas, so they are not a true pair although the machine does date back to 1895, around the same time for this design of cast iron table frame. I've nestled the machine in the window for the time being so that it's out of the way of prying little people, but it also gives me a focus other than my neighbours fence!

My works in progress hang from a light fitting, in between wedding and baby pictures and above the drying washing! Although hopefully the washing will be dried outside now the weather is changing for the better.

Sorry you'll have to crick your neck for this one! (I can't seem to get the photo to load the right way round) I also share the room with the scalextric track, a dresser unit and the dog cage! And now you can see all the clutter in the conservatory - I should be ashamed!!!

Perhaps this post could be a 'before' post and I should make a concerted effort to declutter, tidy, organise etc and then do another 'after' post of the new and improved sewing space?

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!