Hollywood Here We Come

On Sunday I said goodbye to the California cabinet with the restored Pfaff 130-6 sewing machine, picked up by Virginia's son, to be stored until they could figure out a way to get it from Minnesota to California. Wow, the stories that sewing machine and cabinet could tell! It spend many years on a back porch, subject to the harsh weather before it came to my garage where the cabinet still sat out in the cold over the winter until it could be all restored and sold. I hope it finds a good home in much warmer California.

What is left in the garage? Only seven cabinets remain, all are listed on the local Craigslist and several have had inquiries so it might just happen yet! With the Pfaff gone there's room for three cabinets to remain in the garage over the winter but all of the sewing machines will need to come inside. Considering I had 21 cabinets at the garage sale, this is really good. Until Saturday. Somehow they just multiply.

Hollywood style cabinet

Those lovely cabinets that have built-in chairs continue to intrigue me and I think I have had three so far until another one popped up locally. It was more than I could resist so I answered the ad and arranged to pick it up on Saturday while I made the rounds to pick up a serger and get to a final close-out sale for fabric. This seemed to made the long drive for the serger more worthwhile since I could swing slightly east on my way home. A lovely young couple answered the door and showed me into the living room where the cabinet was on display in all of it's glory. They had cleaned it out but were just a little mystified that someone would want to actually sew on that old machine. Ah yes, I hear those words so often. After the head was removed with the knee control and cord carefully lifted out, the base was not too heavy. The chair portion did weigh a ton and before they carried it out to the car I was given a look at the accessories that were kept in the bottom: box of extra feet and bobbins, manual, buttonholer, skirt hem marker, and two Singer sewing books. I was very excited to see those 1960 editions!

Hollywood cabinet with surprise inside!

One final stop for the fabric sale and it was well worth my time: bolts of fabric were 75% off their lowest price so I was able to buy high quality knits for $1 per yard or less!

This was just the knit fabric

A plastic container of thread with a few cones of pink serger thread completed the sale and I went home very, very happy.

Cleaning out this tangle gave me such joy (really)

Once I could take a closer look at the Singer 15-91 hidden away in that wonderful compact cabinet, I could see it needed cleaning:

Singer 15-91 before cleaning (front)

Singer 15-91 before cleaning (back)

This time I only used sewing machine oil with lots of cotton balls and swabs but look at her now:

Singer 15-91 ready to sew

The cabinet reminded me so much of the Pfaff California cabinet so I brought out the brochure only to find it does look like the Hollywood model:

Using a favorite citrus based cabinet cleaner that I've used with kitchen cabinets, I applied it with 0000 steel wool to remove what appeared to be mildew or some kind of mold. It worked really well but I'm thinking about how I can bring the top surface back to life.

She is still a beauty, no? The foam cushions will need to be reupholstered but that will be fun, especially finding the right fabric: something with the blond wood look of the cabinet and the black of the Singer sewing machine head. Very cool.

Along with the Singer 15-91, I also purchased one of those sewing baskets that opens accordian style:

Look at some of what she kept hidden inside

It was in such good shape I asked if it was for sale and they said they had already gotten rid of 3 others. I'm trying to forget I even heard that but got this one home to empty out the treasures within. Along with the usual supplies I found this stack of labels:

I sent a photo back to the family and asked if they wanted me to send them back but they already had another bunch of them and it was okay. Now you can guess that Darlene's sewing machine, now clean and going back in the cabinet (probably to spend the winter in my kitchen) will find many more years of sewing pleasure. They were meant to be used and are happiest when they are working, right Darlene?