Frolic

Friday, August 31, 2012

I Have Vintage Feed Sacks!!!

Just a very quick post to gloat a little.  On my last post I showed the pile of vintage fabric I found at the Estate Sale.  At the time I was more caught up in the new sewing machine (which I gifted to my daughter-in-law who is learning to sew for her two little girls) and of course the Gun Story.  

So I finally got a good look at what I've got in this fabric stash.  I am a little slow on the uptake sometimes, but it finally dawned on me that these are Depression era feed or flour sacks.  CLUE: (for those as dense as I was!) they were sewn into sacks with a very heavy cotton thread.   I googled it to be sure, and  the dimensions match those of feed/flour sacks from the 1930's - 1940's that were made of bright prints which women would re-use to make clothing.   (Today we call this "Repurposing" but our Depression era grandmothers were way ahead of us in this concept.)  

During the Depression and the War years these were vital sources of fabric for many families and women were extremely competitive about getting the patterns they wanted - and enough of each pattern to make an entire garment.   Since they measure approximately 44" X 38", that is basically about one yard of fabric as it would be cut from the bolt.  Therefore it might take anywhere from 2 sacks to make a little girl's dress to 3-4 sacks for an adult woman's housedress.

These came out costing me about .50 apiece.  They sell on eBay for anywhere from $12-$30.   Score!  :)

Friday, August 24, 2012

Granny Get Your Gun - an Estate Sale Adventure

This is where it all began.  I was chasing an Estate Sale and this one was F-A-B-U-L-O-U-S.  The kind I really love where Grandma dies leaving her 1950's ranch house filled with vintage treasures and the family just wants to liquidate the estate and move on.

(Note:  yes, I do feel a little creepy being one of the people pawing through all the worldly goods of someone's dearly departed.  One day, I imagine, someone will be pawing through my stuff this way.)

Anyway, I arrived a few minutes before the sale began and folks were lined up outside the door. When they let us in everyone swarmed through the house with something specific in mind, I'm sure. Everyone looked intent on scoring something they saw in the ad.  I was here for the "vintage sewing machine and fabric" (of course!)  

Within 5 minutes I had laid claim to this pristine Singer Touch & Sew 600e in a very nice desk.  All the accessories and the manual were included and the whole thing looked like it had just come off the showroom floor.  It held a place of honor in the Dining Room, no less - this was a treasured and well cared for sewing machine.  $75.  MINE!  (I gifted it to someone in my family.)

Then I found the room with the real goodies, I'm talking Died and Gone To Vintage Fabric Heaven kind of stash.  Stacks upon stacks of fabrics labeled "$1 per piece" and best of all there were feed sacks included.
GORGEOUS!



But here is the real adventure....

GRANNY GET YOUR GUN

I'm rifling through a large carton of fabrics picking out the prints I like when I come across a small, heavy box buried near the bottom in folds of fabric.  Hmmm...some kind of sewing machine attachment?  The box was circa 1950's and said that this was a revolver - yes, as in gun.  At first I thought it was funny that an old lady would store her sewing supplies in that box - except that it really was a gun in the box along with a supply of bullets.

Bad Angel, perched upon my shoulder whispering in my ear:  "Leave the gun in there and ask how much for this whole box of fabric then pay the $10-$20 or whatever and walk out with it.  You didn't put it in there, it was already in there, so this is totally legit.  They snooze, they lose.  Finder keepers, losers weepers..."   

WAAAIT!!!!

Good Angel: "Okay, this isn't supposed to be in here.  This was someone's mistake, they didn't know it was here, they overlooked it.  You could get away with it on a technicality but you know it's not yours to keep.  Let's give it to the grandson and do the right thing".

But, but....

"No buts.  Do Unto Others as You Would Have Them..."

Okay, okay!  Yes, that is right.  I will turn it in.

Let me just say that waving a gun around a crowded room of treasure seekers resulted in a few startled expressions but nobody's jaw dropped lower than the seller's when I handed him the gun and told him where I found it. This dude was flabbergasted, he took it and stammered that it wasn't for sale...he didn't even know it was there....thanks...

And also let me just say that Bad Angel yammered in my ear all the way home about how much I could get for a vintage gun, and how it would pay for the sewing machine I just bought, and how anyone else would have taken it, and wasn't I a schmuck.  But Good Angel smiled smugly because she had already won the argument and it couldn't be undone.  So There!   


(And the family always wondered what happened to Grandpa...)


***********


Well I'll end this story with pictures of the most darling EVER vintage aprons that I bought - along with all the fabric shown - for a total of $7. 
Isn't this the cutest apron EVER???  It is organdy with appliqués and binding.

And how cute is this?  
One of my best ever days Estate Sale-ing.





Monday, August 13, 2012

I Hit The Mother Lode

Now this is the score every vintage Singer lover lives for:



Gorgeous 201-2 in the fantastic #42 cabinet.  Came with the Pinking attachment, hemstitcher, buttonholer, Singer fabric gripper and blind stitch attachment plus all the regular attachments and a stool full of various goodies.  

I sold the machine and the cabinet, but these attachments are a vintage Singer Dream-Come-True. (I wish I had kept that amazing cabinet, but it had a stale cigarette odor which I just couldn't get rid of , and I simply couldn't live with.  It didn't seem to bother the new owner, though.)   






Saturday, August 4, 2012

Nostalgic Singer Ads


I always thought that I was born 25 years too late...I can't get enough of anything 1930's-1960's.  Of course we tend to see the past through rose colored glasses but I know that Americans struggled through the Depression in the 1930's and WWII in the 1940's.  The 1950's - well that post war era seems nearly idyllic by the standards of the entire century.  I know it wasn't perfect, but I pore over it and recreate a little bit of it in my life whenever I can.  Hence my obsession with all things "vintage" (which is just a marketable way of saying "old".)   



Now this BH&G cover has almost nothing to do with Vintage Singers except that it evokes an era when the housewife who had a kitchen like this almost certainly had a shiny black and gold Singer somewhere in the house.  I LOVE, love, love this kitchen!





Moving on to the 1940's, here is a Singer ad from 1945.  The war was ending and "at last" she could order a new Singer.  Production of appliances, cars, stockings, rubber items, etc. all but stopped in the early '40's and went to the War effort.  I don't know if the Singer factories were involved, but of course many factories were fitted out to build planes, tanks and munitions.  Even if the factories weren't otherwise occupied, there was a shortage of metal, rubber and other material for any manufacturing that wasn't absolutely necessarily.  



According to this ad it seems that new sewing machines were among the items that were hard to come by.  








 How about those Singer Sewing Centers? When you bought a Singer sewing machine you were entitled to a free sewing course to learn how to use it.






 The "Career Gal" makes her own clothes on a Singer - the secret of her success.  Note that she has a roommate, not a husband.  "Career Gals" were usually single, supposedly just working until they achieved their highest career goal of getting married and being a housewife.





Here's the '50's housewife with her smart suit and well dressed daughters.  She makes all their clothes.