Why I Won’t Give Up My Vintage Machine

Why I Won’t Give Up My Vintage Machine

My everyday sewing machine is Singer 301A. It’s a vintage machine built in 1957, that is 11 years before I was even born. This is my workhorse machine that I use for everything… projects ranging from clothing repair to beautiful quilts for my family. There have obviously been a lot of advances in sewing machine technology since then. We are living in the age of the fancy embroidery machines that can do all kinds of stitches and even embroider full images. Modern machines can cut the thread for you, thread the needle, make sure the needle is in the up position when you stop and probably 100 other things that I don’t even know about because I use a sewing machine older than myself.

From time to time, I think about modernizing. I wonder what I’m missing out on, and could my sewing be faster, more efficient or fancier if I upgraded? I recall one time I was at a sewing expo and I decided to try out some new machines with a good mind to buy one. The first thing the salesperson did was hand me a small scrap of fabric. It was about a 2” square. I said, “What’s this for?” He said it was a “leader”. Again, I asked, “What is it for?”. He explained it was a small scrap of fabric used to start out a seam, it was supposed to eliminate thread nests, keep the fabric from being drawn into the needle hole, prevent the machine needle from becoming unthreaded when a new seam is started, etc. I looked at him with incredulity. “None of those things have ever happened to me.”, I explained. He scowled back at me in disbelief.

I tried the new machine anyway. I was put off by the fact that I needed this little scrap of fabric to help the machine behave itself when starting a new seam. It worked just fine, so I decide to try it without the little scrap of fabric “leader”. The fabric was immediately sucked into the needle hole; a giant snarl ensued. The machine could not move forward. It was awful. I cringed and ceded the $2000+ machine to the now annoyed salesperson.

My vintage machine never did any of these things. What good is a machine that will cut the thread for you and always leave the needle in the up position if you can’t just start out a new seam on the very edge of the fabric? I thanked him for his time and went back to browsing for fabric.

When I got home, I was more grateful than ever to have my old machine that had its own process. It simply worked in its own way. Sure, it doesn’t thread itself. It only has “forward” and “reverse”. It can’t make even a simple zigzag let alone any fancy edges. The foot pedal overheats if you use it too long. It doent cut the thread and the manual thread cutter on the back is so dull it doesn’t work anymore. Despite all of these perceived inadequacies, it makes a perfect seam: totally straight, perfectly even stitches, every single time and has been doing so for more than fifty years. For me, you can’t ask for anything more than that.

Blog post by Jen Lopez.

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