Business Trip

Although it's only a few days before Christmas, my husband and I took a brief vacation to a resort area in Minnesota to enjoy the outdoors, get away from our work, and apparently to add a few more sewing machines for my business. We like antique shops and thrift/resale stores so we looked around and found a few to visit. We were happy to find a couple vintage buttonhole making machines, a Kenmore and a White. Although the attachments themselves are not unique, these two came in bakelight containers that I had never seen before so I was happy to invest in them to be added to the appropriate sewing machine as an enticement!

Kenmore buttonhole attachment

White Buttonhole attachment

As I turned the corner to see what was at the back of this antique store I spied an Admiral sewing machine on the floor. It's a clone of a Singer 15, looks in good cosmetic shape, but the wires were snipped on the light and motor. Everything was still there but not functioning. The needle didn't move up and down either but it had been marked down in price so I suspected the seller knew this machine wasn't going to sell easily without a slash in price. After a discussion with the proprietor of the shop about the price, we determined it had to go for the asking price of $16. Not bad but could I get it moving again? The answer is yes, especially after I took the bobbin case out and examined the hook. Lots of extra thread in there so after cleaning and reinserting it would move. Pulling the motor apart proved easy enough and a cleaning helped it to run better. Here he is, all cleaned up and ready to sew:

He's an Admiral (Singer 15 clone)

On the way home we stopped in Brainerd at the Salvation Army store but there weren't any sewing machines or accessories so we backtracked a few blocks to visit a thrift store that was planning on going online (Ebay?) so everything was half price. My kind of store! I didn't see any sewing machines but did find a green Kenmore box with a wonderful set of cams and accessories and another Singer box with a 401 manual and set of feet and 4 top hat cams. Each box was marked $2.98. Then next to the accessory boxes were various new bobbins, pins, and wait a minute - a mini-stitcher? Yes, just like the Singer Handi-Stitch.

Just like the Singer Handi-stitch

 A separate post will include these wonderful finds that were $1.50 each!  After I set my treasure on the counter I looked over and spied a sewing machine cabinet. Oh boy, would it be a good one? After taking everything off the top and looking inside it was a rather worn looking White that wasn't something I needed another one of but wait: there's a picnic type basket behind the cabinet with a tag that read Singer Sewing Machine $19.95. Now we're talking! I opened it up to find a cute Singer 99 in poor cosmetic shape but the potential was there. For $10 she went home with us.

Just another Singer 99

When we got home we found the Viking Huskylock 431 serger had been delivered so that made the third sewing machine.

Viking Huskylock 431

I went off to work an evening shift but remembered I had made contact with a gentleman about an Elna Supermatic for an 8:30 pick-up that evening. Only about 15 minutes from work, I went to take a look at this gem that was dirty but otherwise in great shape with no flat motor pulley as on the Elna Plana plus it had the knee control.

Elna Supermatic: it's not easy being green (or this old)

That made four sewing machines all within a very short period of time but they were all good purchases. My husband and I discussed the poor cosmetic shape of the Singer 99 and that maybe it could be painted in a really jazzy color next summer, like raspberry! The others were in such good shape they were fine as is with just some TLC. So this vacation ended up as a partial business trip but with this much fun who cares?