These are two of my favorite old sewing booklets, handed down from my Mom. "Teaching Little Girls to Sew" was much loved and much used by me when I was learning to sew in the early '70's. I didn't have the cool sewing machine shown on the cover - a Singer Sew Handy, I think - but I learned to sew on my Mom's 15-91 (now MY 15-91!) I made almost all the projects in that booklet, including a needle case, an oven mitt, an apron...all "girlie" projects. (They didn't even pretend to be "Teaching Little Boys to Sew"!)
The pink book I still refer to because it shows how to use all the standard Singer attachments - plus some of the additional ones:
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| the Singer Fabric Gripper |
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| The Automatic Zig Zagger |
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| The coveted "Black Penguin" Walking Presser Foot
This walking foot now sells for astronomical sums - up to $500+. It is my dream to find one of these during routine Estate Sale reconnaissance missions. It remains on my list of must-have items because it is the one and only item in this manual that I don't have.
The fabric gripper, which is hard to find (at least I have rarely seen them anywhere) came along for the ride with one of my sewing machine purchases.  Ditto the awesome Singer Pinking Attachment 
This is really cool! It fits on any low shank machine and effortlessly turns out miles of perfectly pinked (or more accurately "scalloped") fabric.
Although not a vintage Singer item, another fantastic "stowaway" (in some random sewing basket I picked up for $10) was this set of Hoffritz pinking shears. Best I have EVER used.
So I'm way good for pinking - either by hand or machine.
To wind this up, the Moral of the Story is that goodies hide out in the most innocuous places. When I'm at a Garage Sale/Estate Sale and I see a ratty old sewing basket, I DIVE for it. Great things are sometimes hidden inside (and lots of smaller, less valuable, but equally cool items as well.)
And one day, yes one day, I will find that walking foot!
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Love the sewing nostalgia ads -cool that you have your grandmother's machine. Happy spring break and walking foot hunting.
ReplyDeleteThe walking foot is neat! Thanks for posting.
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ReplyDeleteI found a Singer Style-o-Matic attachment in a 1931 Singer 66-16 I bought from a CL offering. This attachment supposedly does 17 different and is very rare because it was only offered by Singer for one year (1931). It retails on ebay and other online stores for $450-$750. The nice thing about the find was that the 66 and its cabinet were in immaculate condition and is a great sewer .
ReplyDeleteLucky you! I love to scope out vintage machines for just that reason. The machine itself may be nothing special, but the accessories that come with it could be the real treasure.
DeleteI bought a 15-91 at a yard sale for $50. It is in a beautiful cabinet, and inside was a pinking attachment. I wasn't in the box but it was complete with the proper screw. I didn't know what it was and looked it up by part number. I have had fun with it and demonstrated it at TOGA last year and gave away faux leather book marks to the people who came to my demo. That was the best bargain I ever got except for the free stuff.
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