A day antiquing

We had a wonderful weekend. We got lots done and we had fun and there was a good bit of laughing.

None of us left the house on Saturday with anything in mind to buy. We were just out for some fun away from the house and a good lunch. When we got home, we found that we had each bought things that were related by theme.

This is Sydney's pile, with one thing left out (not sure how I pulled the wrong pic, but she'd be disappointed if she knew.) There's also a framed print of a jaguar (the predatory one, not the car). She's just coming out of the little girl thing of wolves and big cats. We're very glad to see her growing out of that. When she first came to us, it was all about large animals and books where they talked. It took a while to get her to try books with people, or animals that were more realistically portrayed as animals. But, if she walks up to a representation of one of these predators, she gravitates right for it. She also still collects beanie babies. Once she found out she could get them for a quarter or so, there's no stopping her collection. Just waiting for her to grow out of that one as well. She collects ceramic hummingbirds and this was a nice one to add to her collection...and I didn't even break the beak like I did the first one she bought. The little purple thing is a tree, covered with little bits of purple glass. Very asian and lovely. And, she loves costume jewelry, so there's a big old ring down there. She doesn't do dress up anymore, but she does love gaudy jewelry. On the left is a paperweight of a bear, cut out of some cool metals. So, Sydney's "loose" theme was nature.




Rob's theme was movies and pictures. Even the salt and pepper shakers he bought are very art deco and look like they just jumped off a table from the 30's. The train case is to store photographs in, where he can keep them convenient and contolled. The box in the back left was full of rolls of 8mm film from the 50's. Now, we need a projector to see what "Leo's return from Japan" and the "trip to the beach" are all about.

The two plates we found are from the Thin Man series of movies starring William Powell and Myrna Loy and on the right is from The Philadelphia Story with Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and James Stewart. These are two of our favorite movies and oddly, were the only two plates from the series they had and the only two we would have wanted from that series. Odd, hum?

He also got a copy of Pearl Buck's Dragon Seed, another favorite movie, even though the actors were not chinese and probably made it kind of socially insensitive, but the actors did play the parts well and in a time when there were few minority actors from any group allowed to portray positive characters, they did okay.

He's also started collecting cuff links and has asked me to put the extra button holes in some sleeves to let him wear them. He's pretty excited and I think it would be a nice fashion "extra" for the winter.



But, this is the one you're waiting for. My theme was sewing. In the back, there's a bar of Fels Naptha soap. I have not been able to find naptha soap, even though I've been looking, to help me clean some vintage linens. Well, I found a bar in an antique store and am going to use it.

There are also two cones of cotton thread that is not as vintage as buying it in an antique store would suggest. It's still good strong and heavy thread and didn't break easily when pulled. I plan to use it as quilting thread for my Linus projects...but how long will it take me to use 12,000 yards of thread??? She had a bunch more cones and I wish I'd bought them all, but I contented myself with these two for $3 a cone.



The box is a leather jewelry box. I'm always looking for small boxes to put sewing projects in. But, when I looked in my box for a pair of cuff links I gave to Rob last night, I realized that I need a new box for my "jewels", which is mostly watches with dead batteries and my high school ring.

In front of this box is a singer blind hemmer for a short shank, straight stitch machine. I've been looking at those on ebay and didn't buy one and found this one for $3. We'll see if it works as well as the button holer and better than the zig-zag foot. These old feet are cool in how they work, powered by the needle bar and I'm hoping I can adjust this one to let me do applique with my featherweight. I like to use the blind hem stitch with really tiny stitches and a very narrow bite. I don't think I can change the bite on this, so we'll see about the stitch length.

In the back is a wood point presser. These must be really hard to find. Peter suggested one for the shirt sew-along...if you could find one. I haven't seen one anywhere to buy, except this one, not even on ebay. It was on the back of the top shelf under a lot of dust at an antique store. The lady selling it had to ask me what it was for. It has a name written on it in ink...Peck. And, I'm thinking about writing my name on the other side. Five bucks. And, I walked around with it clutched to my chest like it was a holy shrine.

The rest is from dollar bags of sewing notions in one of the shops and includes embroidery hoops, a tracing wheel, elastic, buttons, gripper snaps, a spool of really bad lavendar poly that I'll use for basting, a white bobbin winding tire (hey, does anybody need a white one? All my machines are black and I'm glad to share this if you need it), some screwdrivers, a seam guage, an adjustable zipper foot and a short shank ruffler. I think I bought 4 bags and got all that. What a deal.

There are even two clips for treadle bobbins and I got 8 bobbins with them. These are valued at $9.99 minimum bid on ebay and I got them for $3 a clip. If the bobbins are the right length, and I think 6 of them are, this will turn out to be a real steal.

I tried to give the ruffler away on Sat night to a lady at JoAnn's. She wanted to use a half off coupon to buy one there and the coupon wouldn't work on feet, so she didn't buy it. I'd have given her this one, but Sydney and I were both watching her so we could talk to her and then she just disappeared while I was paying. I mean, into thin air. Good thing, too because when I looked at the ruffler closer, the bottom is bent. So, my good deed might not have been such a good deed after all.

Okay, so that was our little trip. We keep saying we're going to take the camera or the video recorder to share our day, but we never remember until we're too far away to turn around and get them. But, know that we had a bunch of fun and even though I saw a vintage Universal sewing machine I could have picked up for $35, I left it there. It was hard. But, what did I need another sewing machine for? So bright and shiny and black and beautiful with all her gold decals unmarred. And, I left her there. Good for me! I'm starting to think I need a 12 step program for machine collectors.

Take care and have a wonderful Monday! Lane