Vintage Sewing Machines

Old treadle sewing machines -- the black ones with all the fancy gold, red and green scrollwork painting on them -- are really works of art! It's hard to imagine that for a number of years the old treadle machines were being tossed out with collectors only wanting the bottoms for use as table bases. I rescued one from my neighbor's trash and it sits perched on a shelf in my Vintage Legacy Studio. It's inspirational in a lot of ways. I like to think about how it must have made a woman's life so much simpler when it came to her new in the 1800s. They weren't all that affordable. Here's an interesting quote from an ad from a vintage Peterson's Magazine of December 1873.

"No Female Suffrage Yet. -- But something far better and more valuable, a Wilson Sewing-Machine for every wife and mother in the Union, and at the low price of $50 each of the full finished machine. People ask why the Wilson, a leading machine in all respects, can be sold for $50. The answer is easy and direct -- because its proprietors do not belong to a great "ring," whose purpose it is to keep up the price of sewing-machines."

My vintage machine is a Singer. When I found a vintage ad for an old Singer machine, I knew it just had to go into some of my altered art. I posted my new ACEO size miniature quilt on Ebay today, and I'm heading over to my blogspot blog to share a little more on sewing back then. I have loads of fun info I've discovered through perusing my vast collection of antique books and magazines. I'd like to believe home sewing may be revived again! My other blog will be on another vintage quote: "The Art of Restful Sewing." -- I plan on doing some of that over this Memorial Day weekend!  --Judi