Vintage Machine # 3 - April 2018

I guess by the time I had 2 of them I was obsessed with Singer Featherweights because I read all I could find about them. I found that there was a card table made with a cutout specially for featherweights, with the added feature that you could also use it as a regular card table, or for serving food, drinks, etc.  But these cost as much or more than my machine!

I also found that they had made these cute cabinets for Featherweights, but not very many of them so they are even more expensive than the card tables!

And I also saw where some people took old sewing machine cabinets made for bigger machines and modified them for their Featherweights.  Or even just set their featherweight on top of one, like this:

Above pic from https://conniekresin.com/2015/06/cleaning-cleaning-and-cleaning.html .

So that was what I decided I wanted to do, look for an old cabinet to modify for my Featherweight. Because sometimes you can get old sewing machine cabinets pretty inexpensively.

I saved a search on Facebook Marketplace for “sewing” and found that here in El Paso, sewing cabinets and machines are not nearly as inexpensive as what I see people getting them for in other parts of the country. 

Until one day in April, I saw an ad on Facebook Marketplace for this, listed for $50:

I thought to myself, I do not need another sewing machine, but that cabinet and stool are really cool.  And probably worth the $50 just for them even without the machine!  So I messaged the lady (she was in Las Cruces) asking if it was still available. She asked if I was interested – so I told her “I am but I am trying to figure out how I’d explain it to my husband, LOL”.   I asked her if it worked and she said her mother had passed away in 1993 (25 years earlier) and she had not tried it since then. My husband, Lee was on a mountain bike ride, and when you are riding it is very annoying to get a phone call, so I didn’t want to bother him. I thought and thought about it and decided I wanted it, even if the machine didn’t work, because I could surely use the table. So I told her I was on my way to pick it up and I hopped in the car (no shower or makeup – yuck)

When I got up to Las Cruces she explained that her sister passed away a few weeks earlier and she had decided that it was time to finally let some things go, including this machine.  She already had her own Singer Touch And Sew and never used this one.  I took a picture of her (Jenny) but later lost it when I accidentally deleted all of the pictures on my phone. ☹

We had a heck of a time getting the machine and cabinet into my car.  (I later figured out that the legs were detachable, so that is how I got it out when I got home.

Here is “Naomi Louise”, named after Jenny’s mother, in her new spot in my sewing/craft room.

The machine, a Singer 401a, is considered by many to be one of the best machines Singer made, so I decided to keep it in the cabinet. I always had thought these brownish machines were very ugly, but once I cleaned it up, it is actually growing on me.