Sew I see…

My wife is learning how to sew! My sister is teaching her, and I’m helping her document her progress. I know she’s going to be posting a couple pictures and sewing stories, but this is one that I took that I decided to appropriate for my own site… It’s a fairly low light shot, maybe a 3/4 second exposure and I really like how the moving needle left blurs of light in the air.

Sewing machine collectors and aficionados (and I know there a surprising number of you out there) will recognize from the faceplate that this particular sewing machine is a pre-WWII Singer model 221-1 “Featherweight”, a particular favorite of quilters and collectors, and I can see why. We haven’t called Singer’s toll free number to get the exact date of manufacture from the serial number (1-800-474-6437, just in case you got here via google and were looking for it), but the machine has to be at least 60 years old and it still runs like a dream.