Come, look with me inside this drawer, In this box I've often seen" -- Pamela Harazim.

A few weeks ago, mom and I were sifting through things at a thrift/antique store.  This particular store is actually an old house with each of its rooms filled with old treasures (along with, I must confess, old junk... but half the fun is in the treasure-hunting.)  In an old upstairs bathroom, buried beneath boxes and shoved between a tub and a wall, I discovered a pretty, but rather worn old sewing machine.  When mom eventually found me in this old bathroom examining my find, I told her I wanted a machine like that.  I didn't like the table it was on, and thought maybe I could buy just the machine and put it on the table that we already owned.  Then mom asked me why I would buy half of a no-name brand machine when we had a perfectly good, whole Singer at home.

Me: "But isn't ours missing the machine part?"

Mom: "No, Honey... it's inside the table..."

So, yes... all of these years I thought the "sewing machine" in our living room was just an old, pretty table that used to have a sewing machine that went with it (which, I imagined, had long since been lost, broken, sold, destroyed, or come to some other such unhappy end.)  Today I opened it up, and lo and behold, I found this beauty inside:

(cloth and thread added for effect... no, they weren't hiding in there, too)

My first question was: Does she still work??

My fix-it instinct had me playing with it for at least half an hour before I decided that threading this was a lot different than threading our newer Singer (which, up till this point, I had always considered ancient.. it is older than I am, after all...)  So I, uh... read the directions. (I'm sure if I were a man, I'd still be messing with it now)

As the accompanying manual is nowhere to be found, I looked her up online with this serial number:

According to Singer's website, she was manufactured in Elizabeth, New Jersey in 1904.

Wow.

Well, I found the manual, threaded properly, and finally attempted to sew a few stitches...

It worked!

Unfortunately, the belt on the treadle is broken and actually sewing on it requires you to use the hand wheel to the right... which is really painful after a while.

Well, actually, to be honest... I kind of broke the treadle belt. (Hehe... )  Apparently 106-year-old leather isn't as strong as it used to be, so when I attempted to hook the belt together over the wheel, the hook sort of broke off...

Luckily, I found a website that sells parts for old machines, and they happened to have a replacement belt for only about $13, including shipping!!!

I'm so excited to start sewing with her this summer as I attempt to learn how to make my own dresses, skirts, etc... and, of course, tiny clothes, dolls, etc. for little niece. ♥

(An addendum: My dad is pretty sure that this machine was his great grandmother's... my great great grandmother's!)