Twice a year, our local council runs hard rubbish cleanups. For the week or two beforehand, people put their hard rubbish out on the kerb, ready for the council trucks to take it away on the allotted day. You see heaps of people slowly driving past with their trailers hooked up to the back of their cars, looking for good finds. I think everyone regards it as an excellent way of recycling things at a community level. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure…
Just across the road from us, there was an old singer sewing machine sitting forlornly by itself. It was beautiful and ornate, a little rusted, but looking so sad and lonely. I couldn’t just leave it there! So I raced across the road and scavenged it for myself.
I don’t know what I’m going to do with it, maybe clean it up a bit and use it in some of my embroidery photographs. Its certainly beautiful.
One thing you may not know is that you can find out when your Singer was manufactured. Each one has a serial number that you can look up the serial number of your machine. I found out that the one that I nabbed from across the road dates from 1930.
White Threads is the blog of Yvette Stanton, the author, designer, publisher behind Vetty Creations' quality needlework books and embroidery products.

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