Embracing the new and the old...

I think half my reluctance to do anything sewing over the past number of months has stemmed mainly from the room I was working in.  We call it "The Front Room", its the formal lounge, a lovely room overlooking the lovely park across the road, but it had also become our dumping ground.  Not only that, I had my machines on two small coffee tables and was tracing and cutting on the floor.  In short, it was neither a comfortable nor creative haven.

Over December though I started having a massive clean up in there.  We now have some storage space in the roof which has been a life saver.  I had an intuitive and as it turns out accurate guess as to what my Christmas present might be - my wonderful hubby really splashed out and got me a stunning Horn sewing cabinet.  I worked like a little Christmas elf sorting that room out so much so that it ended up being the "Christmas Room" with the tree, presents etc etc and we had lots of fun Christmas morning ripping into our presents there (and it also gave me heaps of room to put together my wonderful cabinet and Chloe's new doll house).

There are still a few bits and pieces which we need to get rid of or relocate but for all intents and purposes its now "my room", a little haven that I can retreat to. 

Now that this rather large and daunting job is out of the way, I've been able to turn my attention to other things.  Obviously the sewing is one thing but amidst all the junk in the room was something that I had purchased a few months ago at a garage sale.  It was a lovely Singer sewing machine, working mind you, in its case and I got it for $60.  I was quite chuffed with my purchase at the time and intended for the lovely thing to be a display piece in "my room" when it was all ready.

So today I decided to do a bit of research on my little prize.  I needed to rethread it for starters because I think the kids might have pulled the thread out and because it didnt come with a manual I had to find that first.  As it turns out learning about an old Singer is relatively easy.  Singer actually provide serial number identification information online.  Because I have the serial number on my machine it was very easy for me to find out that my machine was made in 1952 and it was given its serial number on 1 April along with 40,000 other 201K machines.  Yes, as it turns out this machine is a 201K.

So you might say.  Well further research shows that this is a pretty decent little machine.  In fact, this is how one machine expert, Alex I Askaroff  has described the 201K:

 "Singer's 201k was undoubtedly the pinnacle of Singer's quality machines. The 201 had arrived on the scene after nearly a century of evolution. It had the very best features of all Singer's models and a price-tag to match.

The Singer 201K has gone down in history as Singer's finest model. Although technology has moved on, quality has not. The Singer 201K simply represents the very best that Singer's could make and was built to last a lifetime. Even today many professional sewers seek out this elusive model as no new machine can come close to this beauty for reliability and stitch quality."

 Those are some pretty big standards to live up to, but time and again as I continued my research people consistently were saying the same thing - this was possibly Singer's best machine ever!!!   So while I had been quite chuffed with my purchase when I first got it, now I was positively beaming with pride for my gorgeous new/old machine.