A New Machine! And Old Ones

I took the plunge! I bought a Viking Sapphire 870. This line is the one with the 10-inch bed and lots of other quilt-centered features--every one of which I expect to be thankful for. I loved my old Viking 1100, and I expect I'll love this one. In many ways, my Bernina 153 has been a very good machine, but finally, I couldn't see living with its limitations when I had such an attractive alternative. 

If I allowed myself, I'm sure I could become a sewing machine collector. I'm not yet able to part with the Bernina, plus I have an old Bernette serger that I never use but am reluctant to sell or give away. And then, there's my 1953 Singer. Therein lies a story.

A couple of years ago, I was on my way home, driving through an old residential section, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw what registered as possibly a sewing machine. A quick double take confirmed it. So I went around the block for a closer look. It was garbage pickup day, and someone had dragged an old Singer in a decrepit sewing table out to the curb for collection. Yikes! It was in good shape! No rust, no dents, the wheel and the rest of the mechanism turned smoothly. And someone was sending it to the dump? Well, I certainly couldn't leave it there. 

If you've ever had one of these machines, you know how heavy they are. Add the sewing table, and, well, I tried valiantly to leverage it into my trunk, but no go. Then, out of the blue (in a very quiet neighborhood with absolutely no other traffic) a thirty-ish guy drove up and asked if I needed some help. Yes! Thanks to him, a few minutes later I was home convincing my husband that this little machine was indeed a real find. We unattached it from the table, and I carted it off to my sewing machine repairer, who charged $200 to replace a couple of small parts and get it into sewing shape. 

It took a lot of poking around on the Internet, but I finally tracked down that it was made in St. John's, Canada, in 1953. That's also the year I was born. I'm not a particular believer in fate, or even that things happen for a reason, but I can't help but feel that, somehow, the Universe conspired to bring us together.