Did your mum or gran have a Singer sewing machine? Just about every woman had one at one point in our history, my mum had a treadle machine but I have no idea what happened to it when she downsized. The photo above is of the hand cranked machine which I bought newly overhauled from a Singer sewing machine shop when I lived in Braintree in Essex.
To me, she’s a thing of beauty and although I now have a much more modern Toyota electric machine I still pull my beloved old Singer out whenever I’m sewing small things, like the bunting or tote bags. The most recent thing I made on her was a wee padded sleeping bag to protect my Kindle.
I use my modern machine for sewing big things like curtains because it would be a real pain hand cranking such long seams, but I actually prefer my vintage machine as she runs silently and smoothly and has a far nicer stitch, it looks like perfect hand stitched backstitch, and any modern machines I’ve used just don’t have such a neat stitch. If you look closely you can see that I have a wee gadget affixed to the machine base, to the right hand of the needle, it’s an adjustable seam guide, so it’s easy to keep the material straight against it.
These old ones are great to let kids loose on because there’s no fear of them running the needle up their fingers, believe me that has happened often enough with electric machines as they can be quite difficult to control, speed wise, they can be scarily fast.
Where can I find such a thing I hear you say? Aye, there’s the rub – because in the past, house clearers have had no respect for these machines at all and millions of them must have been scrapped or just left to rust away over the years. The upshot of that is that they’re difficult to get a hold of now, so if you your mum/granny still has one I advise you to get your name on it before someone else nabs it or the house clearers junk it.
Although Singer is an American firm they had the biggest sewing machine factory in the world at Clydebank, Scotland, just about 10 miles away from where I grew up. In fact it was so big, the nearest railway station to it was actually called Singer – and it still is. Sadly the factory is long gone, it closed down completely in 1980, they had been on that site for almost 100 years but previous to that they had a factory in Glasgow in the 1860s. You can read more about it here.
If you want to see some seriously gorgeous sewing machines have a look here.
What a beauty! Yes, both my grandmother and my mother had machines similar to that until the early 1960’s, and most beautiful work they did, too. My aunt had a treadle machine then which was a great novelty to me. You’re lucky to have the guide fitting – I bet many have been discarded because no-one could guess their purpose. Some of them will fit onto electric machines too.
[Valerie, NZ]
Valerie,
I managed to buy the seam guide fairly recently from Ebay. For a long time I thought the two holes that you screw the guide to were holes you were supposed to drip oil through, which is what I was doing for years!
No one in my family had one of these. Mom was the only one that sewed and she had a modern machine. Those machines are soooo beautiful!
Peggy Ann,
They are lovely and they can be used even to sew through leather and they have no problem with layers of denim. You can get even more amazing designs in the US, there’s an art deco one up for sale in Ebay US at the moment.
Lovely machine. I started out sewing on an old Singer treadle thaT I LOVED – FOR ease of control. It took me ages to to adapt to the knee pedal electric style.
Debbie,
I’ve never used a knee pedal before, I think it would be awkward. My modern machine has a foot pedal but sometimes I press too hard and it vrooms alarmingly fast. I used to play with the treadle when there was nothing on my mum’s machine, somehow it was good fun clunking it up and down.
Gram had a treadle but Mom’s had a lever you pressed with your knee.
Did you hear the story about the woman who called customer service about her new computer not working? They asked her if it might be the mouse and she said that’s what she thought – she was stepping on it as hard as she could and it just wasn’t responding at all!
Pearl,
I don’t think I’d like the knee kind.
No I didn’t hear that one – it’s a hoot!
I had one like that too. I bought it in a junk shop, but beautiful as it was, I just couldn’t co-ordinate properly and kept letting go of the handle to manouevre the material! In the end I gave it away! I have an electric one now but I don’t do much sewing these days!
Interesting to read about Singers at Clydebank.
Evee,
You probably found it more difficult as you’re cory-fisted. I’m sure it went to a good home anyway. Material and the ‘notions’ are all so expensive now, it’s certainly cheaper to buy clothes rather than make them. I just make things for the house now.
Oh, that’s lovely! I’m afraid the one my mother had disappeared in one of their moves. I’ll have to ask my sisters.
Lisa,
So many things seem to ‘disappear’ during house moves. Sewing machines aren’t simple to snaffle though, it’s usually something like a Paisley shawl which goes missing – as happened to a friend of mine.
They are a thing of beauty. I am sure there is a shop in Brighton that has a window display of all old singer machines.
Jo,
I saw a photo of a shop full of vintage machines, I think it was an All Saints shop, but I don’t have one of those shops near me. I wonder what will happen to them all when they want to change their image?
I would love to find a good home for my granny’s beautifil treadle machine.I t doesn’t really fit into our house but I’m lothe to just get rid of it so that it ends up as a table in a pub garden!
Is there anyone out there who could give it a good home?
Jennifer Sharples,
There was a time when house clearance people used to junk these lovely machines but if I were you I would try to sell it on either Ebay or Gumtree. I’m sure somebody will want it.
Best wishes,
Katrina