As I was preparing my sewing space I pulled out the old 1962 Sears Kenmore to see how it was fairing.
Not so good. Let’s start with the fact that the needle was rusting. I kid you not. So I took it to my local “we’ve-been-in-business-forever-and-won’t-laugh-at-your-machine” sewing shop to give it the tune-up it deserved. First, it was missing a very important part.
1/4″ wide needle plate under the presser foot was missing
There is a “needle plate” (or rather, there is supposed to be) right under where the needle goes up and down. My friendly shop guy told me that there was no point working on the machine without that part because it would never sew properly. Slightly panicked I hit the web and…long story short…found the parts from a fabulous store called SewingPsartsOnline.com. For $20 I was back in business. A week later I received my machine back (another $50) in beautiful working order.
With that done it was time to get the original cabinet, that the sewing machine magically fits into via two hinges, out of my moms house and get everything into my sewing space.
In a nutshell here’s how it went; I brought said table to my home from my moms and asked the hubs to help me move it. He took one look at it and said “where did that come from the Salvation Army?” (vintage is not his thing). I assured him I had made a fancy shmancy modern fabric cover that would hide it from his discerning view.
Skeptically he helped me bring it into the house. He scrunched his nose. I placed said cover on the table and he was much happier.
However, he said “that’s really great but when you are working on a project you’re not going to cover that thing every night right? So I am still going to have to look at it, right?” the man had a point that I could not argue.
Within 45 minutes my wonderful man had bought me a new sewing table and sewing machine! I am now the proud owner of a Sauder table
and Singer Quantum 9960 sewing machine .
I realize that it’s no Janome/Bernina/Pfaff/Husqvarna… and the table is no Koala…but so far I am really liking them and I have had the machine for almost a whole week now 😉 I believe I have sewn on it every night since I got it.
My Kenmore was the best 1962 had to offer but even the lower end machines now sure have come a long way in 51 years. I am happy and have pulled out the old projects to finally finish them up. More on that later.
The Animated Librarian Quilts 
Well, I now know your sweetheart a bit better…and I love that when he was not thrilled with the aesthetic of your machine & table, he upgraded it rather than leaving you feeling as if your quilting tools were a blight on the house.
And, sure, it’s not a Koala table, but a lot of good sewing has been done on less than elite machines and ordinary tables. Johnny keeps suggesting that I change over to a sewing table, and while I’m tempted by the “drop-down” feature, I really love sewing at our dining room table, just like my mom did. (Unlike my mom, I have taken over the dining room table and dining room so completely that we insert the adjective “sewing” in place of “dining room” and food is completely banned from that room.)
My sewing area is in the den. It’s nice because when Bryan wants to watch tv we can be in the same room together while I sew. Although when I quilt something really big I may move the machine to the dining room table because of all of the extra room on the back, right now the quilt falls behind the table which is no big deal on a small quilt. Right now I have actually taken over the dining room table for my dissertation and sabbatical project so there is no room there anyway 😉