I love old sewing machines

I love old sewing machines. This can be a bit of a problem when my DH and I get into a spat regarding our "stuff." As in, (this is me talking) "your 'stuff' is making a mess in the basement" which is met with the response from DH of "well, your sewing machines are all over the place...what about that junky one in the garage?" Well, I do have an old, beaten up treadle in the garage (patiently awaiting rehab) that I got for $15 at a yard sale (and a few other machine heads out there too)--and there's the two treadles in the dining room and the two old machines in the bedroom and a couple in the crawlspace and the one in my sewing "studio"........you get the idea. I love them--and each one is special in it's own way.

I took out my Singer Model 99 today. I got it at an auction back when I lived in TX. I don't recall the price but it wasn't a lot. This one is so neat 'cause it is a hand crank machine! It has the bentwood case with original key. The Singer serial number ED762888 tells me it was made in the Kilbowie factory in Clydebank, Scotland. (During it's day, the Kilbowie factory was reportedly the largest sewing machine factory in the world, covering nearly one million square feet of space.) My machine's production batch was allotted on May 20, 1946. Coincidentally, May 20 is my anniversary date (wow! but not in '46 ha ha). Some Model 99's were electric, some were treadles, and some were hand cranks.

Here are some interesting factoids about this machine: It is a low shank machine. The tension dial (on the left) and the stitch length knob (on the right above the gold oval) are totally unmarked, and this model has no reverse lever.

This is an oscillating hook machine, which means if you watch the action in the bobbin case area, the hook (the thing the bobbin fits into) spins halfway in one direction and the spins back in the opposite direction to where it started to make one full cycle for each turn of the hand wheel/crank. Oscillating machines tend to have good tension but can sometimes skip stitches. (The other kind of machine is rotary--will talk about that another day.) The chrome on this machine is still quite shiny--here is the bobbin case:

One really unique feature of this machine is the bobbin winding mechanism. As a bobbin is wound on this machine, a small "forked" arm moves from left to right over and over again to guide the thread back and forth across the width of the bobbin as the bobbin winds! You can see the forked arm and the gear wheel that turns to move the arm back and forth to create an evenly wound bobbin here:

The model 99 is a smaller "portable" version of Singer's model 66 and was introduced around 1920. (The 66 was made between about 1900 and 1950.) Portable for the Model 99 is defined, according to my bathroom scale, as about 28 pounds! This is pretty large compared to the Singer Featherweight, which weighs in at only about 11 pounds. Featherweights were introduced at the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago called the Century of Progress Exposition.

Interestingly, the scroll face on the my 99 is different (more ornate) than the scroll face found on the early Featherweights. So, that is my Singer Model 99 with the hand crank.

I can just envision this machine being purchased by an Englishwoman, perhaps living in a rural area where electricity maybe wasn't too reliable (or perhaps not even available out on the farm). I'm sure it was used for a lot of utilitarian work on clothes and household linens. I like to imagine that she may have even used it to make a quilt or two.......and that she got to express some creativity that way in post WWII England. Can only imagine the adventure this machine had travelling from the UK to Texas!