Inside Grandma's Sewing Machine Table, Part 1

This morning I brewed up a pot of the delicious Pecan Pie flavored coffee my son brought me, drank a couple of cups, and the next thing I knew I was down in the basement cleaning and going through things!  I don't know what was in that coffee...  After an hour or so of sorting through the usual boring things (clothes the kids had outgrown, half-finished craft items, piles of computer paraphernalia), I came upon Grandma's old Singer sewing machine that Grandpa gave me after her death in 1991.  It sits inside its beautiful wooden and wrought iron sewing table, tucked down in its little cubbyhole, with all kinds of stuff piled on top of it.  Today, I cleared it off and brought the machine up for a good cleaning, and proceeded to go through the sewing table drawers.  Some of the items inside belonged to my grandmother, and some I picked up at garage sales.  All neat stuff.

I don't remember Grandma using this machine - I think it was the 1950s when she got a new or newer Singer with a "gas pedal", the same machine I learned on.  I was 12 years old before she'd let me use electricity - until then, it was crank, crank, crank.  Naturally, she told me one of her little white lies about knowing a girl who sewed too fast with electricity, and ran the needle right through her fingernail and out the other side.  I believed it then and was horrified, and still think of it while sewing occasionally today.  But Grandma, if you're listening, I'm on to you now.  But I'm still scared.  And I never go fast.

By that time though, this machine was tucked away in her basement, with stuff piled on top of it, much like it's been at my house for the last 21 years.  I remember her mostly patching Grandpa's clothes and making blankets, not so much sewing clothes except for our Barbie dolls.

I checked the Singer website to see if I could find out when this machine was manufactured, and it was in 1920, which was a bit of a surprise.  I didn't think it was that old.

The first thing I found was tucked down on the bottom of the table - and old Climax sewing machine that I had picked up cheap at a garage sale many years ago.

The Climax Sewing Machine Company was a sub-company of New Home.  Singer bought out the company in the 1920s.  This machine has a motor added on to the back of it.

I will save what I found in the sewing table drawers for the next blog post or two.  A nice glimpse into the past, if I do say so myself.

I think I'm going to have another pot of that Pecan Pie flavored coffee tomorrow and see what else I can find...


Sources:
http://www.blurtit.com/q860236.html