Do You Hear What I Hear???

So, I was supposed to wrap my gift and put it under the tree...

It seems that I have, instead, decorated it like the tree.

It was just too difficult to cover the beautiful box with paper.  What kind of monster would be able to do such a thing?  Certainly not someone as in-love with the machine as I am! 

This is the gift that I have wanted for years.  I'm not at all exaggerating that estimation either.  I can remember being twelve years old and asking for a sewing machine.  It didn't happen.  It's probably just as well, because distractions abounded thereafter and I'm sure I would be doing a "come back to sewing" blog, like so many others out there.  Maybe it's God's will that I come to the craft as a fresh-eyed thirty-two year old beginner.  

I researched a bit before asking for this specific machine.  I wanted one of the classic Singers to begin with.  I looked at a totally electrically rewired Singer from 1955 (a stunning machine), but lost out on eBay.  I thought, at the time, that I needed nothing more out of my machine than a woman in the 1950s got out of hers.  I still, more or less, believe that.  Simplicity from your machine is key in the beginning, I've been told.

After being an eBay loser--which, I might add, isn't the worst kind of loser to be--I decided to expand my horizons.  I continued to look at the vintage and then, one day, I remembered this 160th anniversary machine that I once saw on Amazon.  I had thought it was beautiful and remembered thinking that it was superbly designed with a seemingly-simple sleekness.  

I slowly began thinking that maybe 160th was the machine for me.  One problem:  It was way past the introduction of the machine and it is a limited edition machine. The price has skyrocketed since it's birthing.  I was remembering a $220.00 price tag from a year before and was slightly surprised to see it going for anywhere between $600-$1,500.  Needless to say, I'm not willing to pretend that I'm wealthy enough to throw out that kind of money for a first-timer machine.  

http://www.singerco.com/products/2228/the-singer-160

I won't say it was that easy, but I found a price much more like my memory price and found a new machine that was made for me (I'm convinced).  And,  here it is on my 1950s couch.  Serendipity.  

By the way, I kept the manual and dvd out for bedtime storybook reading.  Everything else is in the box and safely stowed not-away for Christmas morning.  

Now, the waiting...