Playing Sewing Machine Detective

If you have read a lot of the previous entries you know one of the things I enjoy about collecting machines is finding out their history.  Well today I had an internet adventure thanks to the 1953 201-2.

Stepping Out Of My Comfort Zone

I've been sewing, casually, for about 39 years.  Sprinkled in that time there have been spans where I sewed more rigorously.  When I sew, it's usually things like this.

I Can Explain, Really - Another 221

See, here's what happened.  I put the bid in on the Shopgoodwill 221 about four days prior.  The auction hit my $160+$40 shipping limit so I figured it was going to slip away.

I was cruising Ebay and saw this:

Shopgoodwill.com Would Be Funny If It Wasn't So Sad - 221 (I won't say Featherweight, I won't!) And Jinyun Qilong Manufacturing Knows Awesome

I kinda like Shopgoodwill.com when I don't outright hate it.  I don't buy a lot off it, but it's good for picking up stuff that needs some work.  For some reason the shoppers on the auctions there will pretty much ignore anything with problems while going hog wild on the exact same object that doesn't list issues.

Case in point:

A Great Diehl In NY - Singer 103 In An Industrial Treadle

If you read my first post about the Revco Reverse you saw me mention the Philip Diehl 1914 patent (US1118271A).  The patent was applied for on December 12th 1912.  Singer started building this machine in February of 1913 (As far as I can surmise from my interwebs researching).

About a week ago I noticed this in an ad on Craigslist.  This is the best photo and there were no photos of the front of the machine.

It's Not Awesome, But It Works - Revco Reverse On 1908 Singer 27.

It installed the Revco a couple of days ago. The whole installation video at the bottom of the post. Here are the highlights.

The Great British Sewing Bee Is Back! ...please be better, please be better.

I just saw this post on Simply Sewing. It looks like the best sewing show ever is currently filming its fifth season after BBC and the production company made friends again.

From Joe Lycett's Twitter Feed

Dragging Old Singers Into The Post WWII Era - Revco Reverse

For a while now I've been toying with the idea of getting a Revco reverse regulator for a machine.  I've seen a few around, but unfortunately I would have had to buy yet another 66 to get one.  So I passed on them.  Then last week this one showed up on Ebay.

328K Is Singer For Awesome!

This is a follow up to my original post about coverting the 328K to a treadle machine here.

Taking advice from Leila from Grow Your Own Clothes here and some folks on Victorian Sweatshop  I replaced the 328K's stock hand wheel with a 9 spoke designed to be used with treadles.

Drag Racing The 301

There is a group that meets at the library here in Simsbury on the first Monday of each month to sew for charity.  I haven't been yet, but I'm going this coming Monday.  I'm not sure if the library provides the machines we sew on or are we supposed to bring our own.  So to be safe I'm taking a machine.

Unbanished! Treadlizing The 328K

This started out because of a post in the Vintage Singers mailing list.  Someone mentioned getting a 328K to put in a treadle.

One Of The Best Guys I Ever Met

I was digging around for some photos of a period outfit I did today and came across this one from around 2006.

Today On Pimp My Treadle - Singer 125379 For Black Swan

It hasn't been lost on me that this last batch of posts have all been about stuff I've gotten and not about working on the machines.  It was pretty warm here today, up in the 50s, so I decided to rectify the situation by looking for a project I could complete in a day.

Happy New Year - Another 66

I had been holding off on doing this post because I had mis-remembered the production year of this machine.  This was going to be a woo-hoo it's officially an antique built in 1919 post.  But it turns out that my newly minted antique machine is actually the 128 I got from my sister.  This 66-1 is made in 1913.  Yay, it's still officially an antique, just a bit older than I thought.