I’m a very frugal shopper and I gravitate toward vintage, one-of-a-kind things, so it’s no surprise to anyone that I love to thrift. Very few furniture pieces in our house are new. They've all mostly been passed down, yard-saled, traded, inherited, antique-faired, and yes—thrifted. If a piece of furniture in my house is new, it was on clearance. I promise. The joy is in the hunt.
I was five months pregnant with our first baby when I was out thrifting one day. While perusing the junk stores and antique shops, I happened upon the cutest little side table with curved legs and Art Deco lines. She was definitely a cutie and at the $20 price point, I didn’t do much inspecting before telling the shopkeeper I wanted it. The boy that hauled it out to my car for me seemed to struggle, but I really didn't think much of it. Maybe he was just out of shape.
When I got home my husband had trouble getting it out of the car and into the house. “What is this? What did you buy?” A table. A cute little side table for the living room and I love her. I wasn’t sure why it was so heavy—maybe just very well made? Or maybe Tripp was out of shape, too!
A few days later I made the big discovery while cleaning it up and wiping down all the little doors and drawers. It was actually a fold-out cast iron Singer sewing machine. Huh. Well that explained the extra weight.
At the time I didn’t want or need a sewing machine. It was neat to have and was a pretty cool conversation starter, but what I needed was a place to set a lamp and a coaster at the end of the sofa. So that’s exactly what I did with it.
Over the years it did the same furniture shuffle as everything else in my house, making an appearance in nearly every room before I finally got tired of it and retired it to the laundry room under the carport.
That is, until I started this blog and suddenly hand sewing and fabric gluing weren’t cutting it for me anymore. I batted my eyes at my husband and asked him to move the sewing machine back inside for me one last time.
Once inside, I unwrapped the power cord and plugged it in. The bulb on this old girl lit up immediately. I hit the pedal and the needle moved. This thing actually worked! A quick google search of the serial number told me that this was a 1937 Singer sewing machine Model 201.
I actually do know how to sew. In home economics class when I was fourteen, I made a pillowcase with my initial on it and the ugliest quilted purse you've ever seen. I didn't say I was any good, just that there was a point in my life that I did know how a sewing machine kind of worked (home economics was actually the first time I didn’t finish a class with an A average). I found a video on YouTube to refresh my memory on the basics. From there I found a labeled map of the sewing machine parts and ordered what mine was missing.
I’m beyond excited to reteach myself to sew. I make my boys' Halloween costumes every year, but up until now they've been held together with fabric glue. This year I'm going to sew them on my vintage sewing machine.
My husband is just glad this thing has found it’s permanent place in our house.
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