Playing with Toys

I picked up a new old toy for myself today - a while ago I took my grandmother's vintage Singer sewing machine into the shop, and today I finally picked it up! She's a beaut, if I do say so myself. I couldn't resist snapping a few shots with my fancy-pants Christmas camera to share with you. (I need a new hobby like I need a hole in the head, but learning photography is turning out to be fun. :)

The plates on this machine are exquisite. There was another vintage Singer at the shop that wasn't nearly as pretty. ;)

I've had the machine for maybe 5 years now, and I always knew that I *could* sew with it, but until I started reading sewing blogs it never occurred to me that a lot of people prefer the vintage machines to modern ones! Lauren and her husband inspected it for me and warned me that the electrical needed to be replaced, so off to the shop it went. She got a couple new wires, a new belt and a tuneup, and now she's ready to go. I just need to get the table out of the garage and negotiate room for it in the living room somewhere - the sewing room is full up!

In honor of my grandmother, Lucille, my new old machine is christened Lucie. :)

This is the BACK of the machine. No modern manufacturer would bother with such lovely details on the back of something anymore.

Possibly the coolest part of the whole machine - if you look close you can see the spool of thread at the bottom of the "S", and the thread goes through needles. Someone should reproduce this and make jewelry or something.

I'm a complete novice about this, but I'm discovering that the nifty thing about vintage Singers is the serial plate for each corresponds to the date of manufacture. According to the Singer website, this machine is from the end of 1940. HOW COOL IS THAT?! My dad doesn't know if the machine was bought new or used (the family moved around during the war), but he said it definitely came with them during the move from Minnesota to California in the 50's.

Now I need to find some family photos of garments that Grandma sewed right? 

Aunts, come to my rescue! :D

Dale Simons - Performing Live!

In an example of Great Minds Think Alike, last week my aunt Laurie and cousin Lauren edited a couple videos of grandpa's band, and my new Ebay purchase has already been put to great use. :) 

So here we present for your listening pleasure, Dale Simons and His Blue Denim Boys.

"Redhead"

"Hi Diddle Di" - wedding song

And don't forget to enter my giveaway for a copy of a Jonathan Stout and His Campus Five album!

Dale Simons and His Blue Denim Boys

I arrived home tonight to find an exciting package in the mail today - it contained the below advertising card for "Dale Simons and His Blue Denim Boys". Why was this so exciting? Dale Simons was my grandfather!

I've been haunting ebay for months, hoping to find some sort of memorabilia from my grandpa's band. He had a dance band in the late 30's to the early 50's in the midwest (though interrupted by the war, which took the family to Washington state where my dad was born). They toured through many midwestern states, playing polkas and other dance tunes. My grandpa played cornet and sang. I think this postcard is probably post-WWII, because the family lived in Winona, Minnesota and operated a dance hall there until dance clubs became unprofitable in the mid-50's.

In this picture the band is wearing their signature overalls with a tie hanging out. There's a better quality version of this image hanging in my parents' hallway, and I remember looking at the row of funny smoking men on the bandstands a lot when I grew up.

Howdy!