Newest Member of the Family : Singer Featherweight

So excited about my new purchase : a classic Singer 221 Featherweight, circa 1941.  Yup, with the Egyptian Scroll endplate, which means it's from the pre-WWII era.  ;-)   It's so cute!

I'd seen them before at sew-ins for the Quilt Guild, but pricing at that time was out of my range.  Someone had one at Quilt Camp in November, and I fell in love all over again.

Read more about them at Cheeky Congiscenti's blog post.

I learned to sew on a portable Singer Genie.  And I remember "running" [no thread] Great Gramma's old Singer Treadle when I was a kid.  It's been a long time since I had a Singer in my care.

With a new needle, new thread (including a newly wound bobbin), oil and lube, it sews like a dream!  Yahoo!  You gotta love these purely mechanical sewing machines.  With a little care and maintenance, they will sew for many years.  I don't have that same confidence in my newer computerized machines.  Although I do appreciate what they do for me here and now!

It's also neat that Singer provides a database so that you can date your particular machine by the serial number.  You also can tell what factory it came from.  Kind of like having a birth certificate, but not.   This one is dated at 1941.

If you're interested in getting one, these days, eBay makes it very easy to find them.  Still, this book will be very helpful to anyone interested in Featherweights, including where to find them, and their care and feeding, as well as trouble-shooting basic and common problems after they've been neglected and poorly stored for years and years.  

I got my copy from my local public library, but you could certainly purchase a copy, too.  

I have a couple of jobs in mind for my new baby, too!