The Girls

I have an affinity for old sewing machines.

DH purchased this for me after he saw me pining over one on Ebay.  

Rita

I started sewing on her when I started my Easy Street Quilt.  I absolutely love to piece on this machine.  The downside?  There is no 1/4 inch mark, you can see that I have blue painter's tape to mark the 1/4 mark.

Jane she is a Singer 500A  I had to have her, loved the dial in the front, reminds me of the Star Trek Emblem on their shirts.

Jane

DH just cleaned her up, greased and oiled her.  She doesn't have a case, so she is going to get a sewing machine cover at least.   She got new spool pins just recently.   Maybe someday we will find her a cabinet.
The picture below shows Jane's cover that I made recently.

Marilyn

This is Marilyn she is circa 1953 she is a black 301 with a long table, they make one that is a short table too!  I love this machine she is quite the little workhorse! DH purchased her for me for Christmas.  He is such a wonderful hubby!

Dinah

  This is Dinah.  DH purchased these for me a couple of days after he purchased Marilyn.  She was on craigslist.  They were selling her for $50 in the cabinet.  They saw no value in the machine, it was basically the cabinet they valued.  When I saw the cabinet I had just seen old marketing ephemera that showed what the original original cabinets looked like and this was it and it was in spectacular condition.

This is the original cabinet that the machine came in!  It has great wood and veneer and is kind of art deco looking with all of these wonderful rounded curves.  The bench came along with her and she sews like a champ.  I love sewing on her, and it is wonderful especially when you are sewing borders and have lots of weight and fabric.

Millie

The blue beauty is my modern home.  She was found at an estate sale in a cabinet which was less than reputable.  No place for a girl like her to be hanging out in.  So DH removed her and she has been sitting waiting for a new home for a couple of months.  She is a Japanese machine based upon the Singer model 15.  The only difference is that usually these clones have better motors.  I have scoured second hand stores, flea markets, craigslist, antique stores, and estate sales looking for a cabinet.  Unfortunately if there is a cabinet it is either in terrible shape, and not worth the money they want, or it is missing the hinge pins that would hold the machine in place in the cabinet.  Embarrassingly I realized recently that there was an old Kenmore sewing machine sitting in the attic.  I do not like the machine, it belonged to someone else, but it was in a cabinet, that looked pretty sound, just in desperate need of a facelift.  The cabinet is in the process of getting refinished. I need a few nice days with weather above 50 so I can use the man cave to paint in.  I could prime in the basement, but cannot paint there.  When the cabinet is finished, and the Modern is rewired we will take more pictures of her to add to this page.  I want to call her Millie, in reference to the film Thoroughly Modern Millie since she is a modern.  Here she is in her new home.

I just love how she turned out, and the little pink glass know has bubbles in it and is so cute goes perfectly in my sewing room. 

Baby

This is the first sewing machine I ever purchased.  I had one that my mother had given me, that was very temperamental.  Sew for 15 minutes then wouldn't work again for days.  I purchased this when it was brand new it was a floor sample and at the time was 1/2 price and it cost me $525 at the time.  It is a Singer 1425N.  It has a bunch of built in stitches, the button foot where you snap it onto the machine, put the button in and it makes perfect button holes every time.  I made many dresses, tops, gowns, and my first several quilts on this machine.  She was broken  a few years ago and I could not find someone to repair the machine.  DH found one thanks to his friends and it was fixed.  Unfortunately the nature of mechanical things with gears it will take some time before it smooths out, so right now she sounds very loud to me.  I still love to use her though when I want to do straight line quilting with a walking foot.  She is my baby, and that is her name. 

Astrid

This is my Viking/Husqvarna 855.  Her name is Astrid.  She was a gift from my ex husband.  I love the machine, and she is what I use for FMQ.  For piecing I do not like her so much, and just discovered the reason is because the feed dogs are too far apart so it is very difficult to keep a 1/4 inch seam because she actually only would have the fabric running on one feed dog.

Scarlet is a singer featherweight which was a barn find.  Totally siezed, all corroded, paint completely gone around the bottom of the machine.

Right now she appears orange, she is more of a fire engine red.  She just got her decals today, will go to get her clear coats, then taken to the sewing machine guy to make sure she is timed, and running like a champ.

Scarlet update*

Scarlet

 DH has her put back together, but she is going to the sewing machine guy for a tune up to make sure she is put together right. She returned and I actually sewed on her today.  DH was surprised.  I guess he thought she was going to be my trophy girl. 

I have two more machines, one is a treadle which I got from my great grandmother.  She was stored at one time in a storage shed so she is in very rough condition.  The person who put her out there tried to have her refinished, but it was just not the same, and I don't open her often.   Her name is Essie.  Maybe someday I will pull her out and see if DH and I can get her running and maybe treadle.  

Colleen

 The MidState is another Japanese machine based upon the Singer Model 15.  Her name is Colleen, and she was found and purchased at the same time that Scarlet was purchased.  They were bundled together for a total of $35 together.  We have not done a whole lot with her, yet.  Her cabinet is very beat up but very sound, she may need a home remodel, and she is definitely in need of a rewire.  She is called Colleen because of these two features.

See the super cute shamrocks?  Wow you can see how really dirty she is and how much she needs some love.  Maybe after Millie and Scarlet are finished.

Finally I have another featherweight that I found at an estate sale.  She was missing some parts.  DH and I worked on her a bit today.  She is going to go live with my mother and sister in Oregon once we get her up and running.  I love my featherweight and I hope they love this one half as much as I love mine.

*** Update  The machine was cleaned, tuned by the machine guy and sent home with my mother.  She adores the machine and takes it with her when she travels and goes to quilt group.  

Meet Sophia she is a 99K.  DH purchase her for my birthday, and she was only $40.  She needed a new belt and a straight stitch foot.  I think that the one she came with was a zipper foot.

Sophia

I don't think she was used much in the past 60 years, and she was in very good condition.  She is very tight but is loosening up a bit now. The only thing that seems to be wrong with her is that she has lots of "crazing" in her paint where she may have been stored somewhere that while dry had extreme temperatures.

 This is Flora she was sitting in a little cubby under the basement stairs at my MIL house.  She is a White Rotary, she is cast iron and has all these beautiful embossed and relief flowers and scroll work on her.  Flora was in a cabinet.

Flora

The cabinet had a small broken part up where Flora raises out of the cabinet, and I worried that if she shook too much while she sewed she would break.  While the cabinet is not in pristine, I think I am going to mainly leave her as it is, maybe lots of oil, polish and she will look a wee bit better.

One side has this wonderful cupboard with shelves, and in those shelves was Flora's original manual, accessories, and some other tools, and the original oil can.  That top is a small drawer which swings out and is full of bobbins.  A Girl can never have too many of those!

The other side of her cabinet has a hinged drawer that will open up where you can store your current projects. In that bin was the piece that was broken off.  So DH took it and glued it back together.  He is so handy and talented.

The only real problem with Flora is that she is in desperate need of rewiring.  DH will do that when he has time.  I can't wait to sew on her.  She is such a beauty.

I am almost embarrassed to admit I have acquired a few more machines over the past couple of months.

Twice a year the Flat Rock Historical society has a flea market at the Flat Rock race track.  It is only for one day and you will find all sorts of treasures.  This is what I found this year.  The man wanted $75 for it.  If you look at the case you see a little belly button looking hole in the base.  That is where the kneebar went to run the machine. There was no kneebar so I made a deal and got it for $25. 

Hedy

She is a Singer 128 Blackside machine.  What is a Singer Blackside?  Per Singer Sewing Info

During the period 1941 to 1953 Singer occasionally produced what are known as ‘Blackside’ models. Unlike the standard machines, many of the normally bright plated parts utilized a chemically blacked finish instead. This is thought to have been in response to shortages of nickel and chromium.
It is a characteristic of these machines that there seems to have been no hard and fast rule as to which ‘Blackside’ parts were fitted. Generally needle plates, bobbin covers and faceplates etc. would all be Blackside, but various knobs, levers, screws etc could be either bright or black. At the same time Singer also produced a range of accessories, tools etc and even bobbins that were blackside. Generally blackside components had the same Simanco part numbers as their bright plated counterparts.

Not only is she a blackside she is a crinkle.

Also in roughly the same period Singer produced some machines with a ‘black crinkle’, ‘black wrinkle’, ‘Godzilla’ finish. Whatever you call them, they are extremely RARE. Research indicates that Singer only produced limited runs of models 66, 99, 128 and 221 with this finish, and these all date from the 1941 to 1953 era. 

That gorgeous faceplate is black.  According to the guide she was made in 1941 I think that I am going to name her Hedy after Hedy Lamarr. Dh and I found another blackside which did have a kneebar, we are going to use it as a parts machine since neither were complete and both needed some major work.  I also will have to learn how to use a bullet shuttle bobbin. 

My other find?  Well the sale only goes for one day and there are a lot of salvage dealers and there was one who had 4 pillars that I wanted for our new front porch.  The dealer wanted too much for them so I decided to go back at the end of the sale and see if they were still there.  The vendor right across from him had this and offered it to me for $15.  The case was in decent shape and I thought she just needed some love.

Beautiful case and what was inside?

Nora

This Franklin.  They were made by White she has beautiful decals, but needs some major cleaning.  I think at one time she may have been a hand crank which was converted to electric.  She has this huge gorgeous hand wheel. She will be a winter project.  She had the cover to the side storage area with all sorts of vintage yummies.  

 I think this one will be called Nora after Nick and Nora Charles of the Thin Man Series. Nora Charles was played by Myrna Loy.  I will share more once she is clean and beautiful. 

I found this beauty at a barn sale recently.  She has a decent cabinet, and after DH cleaned her up she is a lovely lady.  She is a model 15-91 she is from 1952 and her name is Lise after the Leslie Caron character in American in Paris.  

Lise

DH friends are constantly bringing machines or he is finding them going into the garbage pit at work and he rescues them.

Carmen

 This is a Singer model 66-14 made in 1940  She is a crinkle finish and has an oscillating bobbin.  What does that mean?  Her bobbin kind of twists from side to side.

She is named Carmen after Carmen Miranda. Based upon her dance she used to do just like my bobbin.