My wonderful old Singer can sing! Here she is threaded up with silk stitching a piece of freehand seafoam lace
and then some spider web lace on silk organza, she could handle these very fine materials no worries.
What a dream of a machine!
Comments
It's Crow Time 
a great spider web and oh….the machine. is it easy to turn the wheel with the one hand while holding the material down with the other? i want one… i need to start checking ebay.
You’ll love it! it’s so easy to use Deanna because it’s so slow & there’s no danger of running over my fingers which I always worried about with electric machines!
did you see this video that Peggy linked to on her blog?
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/life/zoology/insects-arachnids/spider5.htm
how cool is that?
Hello Mo,
Congratulations on your lovely Singer 99K. They are wonderful, reliable machines, very easy to use.
I can’t believe the fine work you are doing on it – I would get that snagged in no time, on a fingernail if nothing else. I’m looking forward to seeing what you do with the lacy cobweb.
Thank you for putting the link to my blog, it is much appreciated.
Hope you don’t mind me mentioning it, but I think you have still got the bobbin winder tyre in contact with the balance wheel, so you will be winding an invisible bobbin as you sew and putting in extra effort to turn the handle. Press back the metal tab that keeps the bobbin in place and the bobbin winder will pop up away from the balance wheel.
Love from England
Muv aka Lizzie Lenard
Thank you Muv I couldn’t have cleaned and oiled and threaded this gorgeous old machine without you! your careful attention to all the details in your youtube clips made me feel confident & safe about having a go and just checked the bobbin winder, it is disengaged but needs a new rubber ring as it is too loose and have wound the bobbin by hand for now.
Hello Mo,
Rubber rings are just about the easiest things to replace on a 99K. When I got my 99K the rubber ring had melted like a Salvador Dali alarm clock.
I’m delighted that you have jumped into the world of vintage machines. I don’t know why people are so nervous of them. It’s those plastic plug in things that look like giant sized food mixers that terrify me.
Love,
Muv
I agree with you about the computerized electric machines that look like they come from Mars, found the rubber bobbin ring online for US 59 cents at sew-classic & decided to get a couple of the red spool pin felts and some bobbin cases as well. I found a manual online as a pdf but would love to find an original one!
Your spiderweb is just beautiful, so delicate and ethereal. You have a very delicate touch, Mo! Wonderful Singing!
this was just a quick experiment to see how it would cope with the very fine materials it’s exciting!
I’m kicking myself for giving my Singer away! I have an old broken one which I found at the scrap yard but I do miss actually sewing with one. Love the second photo!
your old broken one may well work with a bit of love and attention they are so beautifully made!
a beauty.
I’m in love with a machine & just heard that a brilliant friend’s first job was as a sewing machine mechanic in Switzerland if she ever needs deep innard repairs! He’s an artist/scientist who can figure out how to do anything and lives just up the road!
My mother had a hand-wheel Singer like this and in 1951 bought the (special Singer centennial) treadle model.I learned to sew on that treadle and wish I still had it. Dad even made her a zipper foot (by filing a regular presser foot!) Fabulous machines and far, far above a lot of today’s clunkers.
congratulations…the Singers are wonderful girls. mine kept my children clothed when we lived off the grid in Andamooka and is still in use [just not when i’m roaming the whirled, which is where i am now!]
oh this is beautiful cloth……I have several very old machines. I have never used any of them, I just gaze at them and wonder whet they have done before.
this one has worked hard but runs smooth as silk, I was wondering about all the little scratched marks in the waist between the needle and the thread reel, a girlfriend was over last night and remembers her mother wrapped it in in a piece of wool maybe even an old sock & used it as a pincushion !
Hi, Mo. This is so exciting–I can feel your enthusiasm over the internet waves! Lovely machine, lovely spiderweb work/play you’ve got going on there.
best, nadia
Oh, it’s just beautiful. I have one in my living room that we use as sort of a side table. Maybe it’s time to clear it off and open her up. I LOVE your photos. xo