My Barn Sale Purchase

There is a sweet lady in our church who loves to go to yard sales and garage sales and estate sales and auctions. She buys lots of stuff, cleans it up, and once a year she and two of her friends have what they call a Barn Sale. They get pretty fancy with it. They even send out invitations.

This year's Barn Sale was this last weekend on Friday and Saturday. Late Saturday afternoon my husband and I ambled up the road from our house about a mile or two to see what there was to see.

I was so impressed.

First of all, the barn was immaculate. Not a spider web, not a speck of dirt. It was cleaner than my garage - that's for sure.

And the stuff. Oh. My. Goodness. Keep in mind that this sale had been going on for two days and the "Barn Chicks", as they refer to themselves, were reporting very robust sales. There was still so much to see. So much I would have loved to have brought home. So much vintage, fun stuff. I was really impressed.

And then it happened. I turned around and my eyes fell on something I have secretly wanted for several years. Something that is typically hard to find. My friend saw this "love at first sight" occurance happen right in front of her and she lost no time in running over to me.

"Do you like that?" "I can see you might want that."

"Um, yeah. I would love it. But how much is it?" I didn't want to look at the tag.

"Well, I would go down on the price for you."

I looked at the price tag and gulped. And then she told me what she would go down too. And then I said "SOLD!"

And this is what I carted home:

It is a Singer Featherweight sewing machine. And it works like a dream. It is so small it feels like I am sewing on a toy. But it is strong and sturdy and I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT!

I didn't need it. My goodness, I have a sewing machine with more bells and whistles on it than I will ever use. And this little sweetheart only sews frontwards and backwards. And that's it. They couldn't be more different. But when I sew on it I wonder about who the first woman was who owned it and how excited and happy she must have been. And I wonder what she sewed on it. My first project was a set of placemats for my daughter's new kitchen.

I called the Singer company and gave them the model number and found out that my little Featherweights "birthday" is May 4, 1953. She was "born" in Elizabeth, New Jersey. That means she is 57 years old. Older than me. I guess that makes me vintage too. Vintage sounds a bit nicer than antique, don't you think?

A really cool thing is that the Singer needles and feet that you buy today, work on this machine too. Threading it was a breeze. The bobbin winder is fun. I love, love, love it! Can you tell?

I love having something from the past. I love having something so simple that still works so well.

They just don't make things like that anymore.