A 'RED' letter day at the thrift stores!

I told you I was going to stop at a thrift store today.  Well, I actually stopped at 3 thrift stores (but I skipped the quilt store).  Woohoo!  What a day of great finds!  I'll list my finds in backwards order, last shop to first shop, saving the best for last.

At the third shop, I found Gutermann thread for $0.50 each.  I bought both spools.  I also found several quilting books.  These are the 2 books I came home with.

The Block Book by Judy Martin

101 Fab Rotary cut Quilts

At the second thrift store, I hit the jackpot on new fabrics.  There is a Joann's down the street from this store, and, I think Joann's donates here.  First, I found two different fabrics, both over 2 yards long. 

over 2 yards each

The purple is a flannel, and it will be used by my little quilt guild to make preemie quilts for a local hospital here.  The white with pale dusty pink squares will make a background fabric for a quilt, sometime in the future. 

32 red fat quarters

There were 4 bundles of 8 red fat quarters each.  I paid $12 for all of them.  Red is my favorite color!  Who can't use lots of reds in their stash???

The best 'find' of the day was at the first thrift store.  Remember, my 50th Birthday was on 2-3-2013.  Look closely at the date on this ticket.

2-3-2013 dated ticket

This was priced on my birthday!  I know that it means I was supposed to have this.

vintage Japanese sewing machine, badged 'Challenge'

face plate on machine

This machine has all it parts!  Woohoo!  I'm hoping that the bobbin case will fit the 'Illinois' machine I found last month.  The motor works on this machine, and, the wiring looks good, too. 

it has it's bobbin case

has the needle clamp & foot (made in Japan in red on post of machine)

Sears motor that works

This machine was serviced at the same place as the Illinois machine had been serviced.  See the yellow sticker in the picture with the needle clamp?  Same company (now out of business). 

The decals of this machine are in red and gold.  There are a few chips in the paint, but, overall it is in good condition.

decals on back of machine

think this is for the feed dogs, not sure yet

stitch lever, maybe it has reverse???

serial number plate.  Sears machine, but, made in Japan 

underside of machine, even the cabinet has a serial badge attached

This machine came in a cabinet.  I only have one other machine in a cabinet (Necchi) so, I kept this cabinet.  I didn't really have a choice, since I couldn't get the screw to come loose and release the machine.  I'll need hubby's help on this, since it's hard to hold the machine up and mess with the screwdriver at the same time (besides, it was cold outside while trying to load this machine, my hands wouldn't work).  The top of the cabinet has several scratches, but, the sides are really pretty, as is the inside of the cabinet top.  The legs are wobbly, but, after I remove the machine, I should be able to fix the legs. 

PS:  This machine will keep it's motor.  I usually take the motors off, but, not this time.