The last couple of weeks, on our way home from church on Sunday, Peter and I have noticed some sort of yard sale happening in the parking lot of the local mall. Some people set up tables. Some people pull down the tailgate of their truck and use that as a table. There’s jewellery, books, clothing, tools. One man filled a parking spot with bikes he’d fixed up. We were on our way to the grocery store and decided to take a look.
I snagged a book by Peter Carey that I haven’t read yet, from a free box, and eyed jewellery as Peter excitedly told me someone was selling a pick axe. Um, yay?
We ended up chatting for a while with an older couple, discussing some of their items. We swapped travel stories (they’d been to Vietnam recently) and we came home with this:
That’s an antique Singer Sewing machine.
Built in Great Britain, the Canadian patent is 1911.
That couple we were talking to? This belonged to his grandmother.
It came with a few extra parts and this handy brochure:
We also got a cool wooden box to store our parachutes in!
Nice finds! That sewing machine is a beauty! Does the fabric swatch imply that it still works?
Thanks! It doesn’t seem to work but we’re not quite sure whether that’s because it’s not set up properly or if it has a missing/broken part. I don’t think it would be too complicated to get it working but really we bought it as a decorative piece more than anything.
So great! I love that you get to know the backstory a bit.
Darn, I was looking for a parachute box!
I know! I think that was part of what really sold it. It made it feel more personal than just finding it at an antique shop or something like that.