The last leg of our honeymoon roadtrip was a stop in Las Vegas, because I had never been there and I wanted to see it. Nestled in the chaos of the strip, there is a clothing store called ALLSAINTS. I didn't actually go in the store, but I was mesmerized by the exterior. The store was enclosed by a wall of hundreds of antique sewing machines!
Months later I was thinking about these machines and reading about what a pleasure it is to sew with ones like them. I looked on Craigslist and soon found an ad that interested me. The buyer wasn't asking for very much money, but I became a little suspicious once I realized that the ad had been up for almost a month. Then I looked at the pictures and the reason became clear - the pictures were awful and you could not tell anything about the condition of the machine. In fact, you could not even see it because the head was still folded into the table. I could make out the black motor and that was about it. The only useful thing the owner did post, was a picture of the manual for a Singer 15-90. I decided to take a chance and hope that it was actually a 15-90 inside the table and that is was not in terrible condition.
The next afternoon I found myself in the owner's garage, where the machine and table had been properly set up. The machine was running and fairly clean. I could not imagine why the owner had not photographed it like that in the first place, but I was glad because it gave me the opportunity to buy it. Not only that, but the drawers of the desk where chock full of accessories. So my project for the last couple of weekends has been getting her cleaned up and ready sew, but I'll save that for another post.
One more thing: the cast iron head of a 15-90 weighs about 30 pounds. Assuming that most sewing machines of the time period weighed about the same, I hope this wall never falls on anyone. Geez louise.
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