Okay one last one....

[Johnny Noshoes]

[KC]

1. How

beautiful. It looks like the one my grandmother used to have.

[bluedigger]

2. Reminds me of one I used to have.

Not quite as nice, but similar.

[Mira]

3. I never had a thing of beauty like this. BUT

it does take me back to when I made all the family's clothes, except my husband's suits, on one like it just less gorgeous.
Oh, how times have changed.
I now have a machine sitting in a corner of a closet, have not opened it in decades.

Looking at it makes me yearn for the days of being young, returning from a fabric store, opening a pattern and a bolt of fabric, and getting ready to create.

Leaving behind my maudlin sentiments, more importantly I think your photo is rare and fantastic. Glistening and opulent.

[Johnny Noshoes]

8. It isn't just a machine

it is a work of art. It just looked so beautiful sitting in that window that I had to take the picture. It looked so wonderfully Victorian.

[NV Whino]

4. What a beauty!

Did it have a treadle?

[Johnny Noshoes]

9. If by treadle you mean foot peddle to power it

I didn't see one but it was sitting in the window and maybe it was only the top half of the whole machine. There were rows of them sitting in this window on Crosby Street in the Soho section of Manhattan.

[NV Whino]

12. It was probably an early electric "portable"

My grandmother's was a treadle – yes, run by foot power – and I used to sit under the machine working the treadle.

[Celebration]

5. My mom's looked like this

She didn't sew much but I do remember her doing a few things and pressing something with her knee. I actually have an old Singer portable from the 50s that was first owned by my great aunt. They go for quite a bit on Ebay............

Thanks for the memories! Beautiful.

[JohnnyRingo]

6. It seems everybody's grandmother had one of those...

But I don't recall it being quite so ornate. That must be the de-luxe model.

Maybe my grandma had a knock-off "Sincer". She was the church organist and could run the machine at at mach speeds. LOL

[Johnny Noshoes]

10. Yeah my old Italian grandma had one too.

She could get that thing really flying with her foot on the peddle. Her's wasn't this elaborate either.

[Blue_In_AK]

7. That looks like my mom's sewing machine I learned to sew on

50 years ago. My daughter has it now, and it still works fine. I don't think it's ever been serviced.

They don't make 'em like they used to.


P.S. If that's a treadle machine, my mom's was a later version, but it looked very similar to this. Speaking of treadles, I once sewed a 24-foot canvas tipi on a treadle machine when I was living on a commune in the wilds of Oregon back in the old days. That one worked fine, too. :hippie:

[Celebration]

11. This was prior to

companies learning about planned obsolescence.

Commune? Very cool. I bet you have a lot of stories.

[Blue_In_AK]

13. I've got a million of 'em.

:)

[ohheckyeah]

14. Beautiful!

It looks like my grandmother's machine.

[juxtaposed]

15. Back in the early 60's I found one of these at the dump. I was just a kid, may be 8-10

We threw it in the international harvester travel-all. I refinished it and made a teddy bear with it. My parents sold it at some time after that.