A bit of a mystery

I haven' t forgotten the blog and sewing, but my life still is run by bigger projects. I can proudly report that house has a new roof on, electricity is done and (my major job) - orchard and basic garden planted. These past months had been filled with hard, hard work, but major things are starting to make at least some sense - road through the wood must be completed, polytunell erected, house garden is still a mess. but.... we are getting there, we are (or so we believe).

So... nothing in the crafty mode to show. (Only sewing I had done in past 6 mo had been patching up my working trousers. ) But! there is always a hope, and for that my DH for Xmass gave me another Singer treadle. I wanted 15k, and I got one.... Ish. It is a bit of a mystery.

According to it' s  serial number, it has been made in Germany in 1915. But instead of a German badge it has one in English. So... Export market? Wait a minute? Exporting sewing machines  from Germany to UK in 1915? It's WWI! So I' m scratching my head and trying to solve this mystery.
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On mine  badge looks like this - in English

If it' s made in Germany, Wittenberge badge should look like this

School bags and horses

Last week was long awaited midterm holidays, so Charlie sat down and played with treadle for the first time. 

After I played a bit with sewing machine embroidery last month, Charlie was itching to try it herself. 

Design ideas were no problem for Charlie as everything needs to be about horses. She made several drawings, copied it roughly on the black fabric and off she went. 

She had wanted to make a bag for herself for a while, and week-long holidays were just perfect for such a project.

The densely quilted bag was a very good project to get treadle motions under the belt. It took several broken threads until she learned the smooth forward motion, but in two hours she was able to put the needle exactly where she wanted at exactly the speed she wanted. 

The bag also has several rather advanced inside pockets, densely quilted (the only black fabric I had at hand was very soft, so dense quilting was needed to make the bag hold the shape and the weight expected from a hard working school bag. 

In some places there are 18 layers of fabric and the batting – thank God for the durability of an old Singer! 

What impressed me – she just kept working, hour after hour, and in three days her bag was ready – exactly the right size, right design and all that. For a 12 yo  it is rather impressive. 

Ode to Singer

While the starch is drying out on the back for Oga quilt, I can finally tell the story I promised to tell long ago, about my oldest and most loved Singer (model 16K , serial number J1652230).

My grand granparents, 1906

When my grand grand mother Ann Beitan married Theodor Ozolin in 1906, they got a posh and useful wedding present from Ann’s mother Trine Beitan – this sewing machine.

The life was full of promises for them. Ann was a daughter of a wealthy farmers and Theodor – a teacher and an aspiring scientist.
  

My grandomother, 1908

But these were troubled times around – the waves of the Revolution of 1905 hadn’t settled jet and many were arrested, including Theodor, leaving pregnant Ann alone.  Theodor never returned. In prison he cought TB and died soon after their little daughter Zenta was born in December 1907. 

Ann never re-married. She returned back to farm and raised her daughter, sewing one fancy dress after another for her little orphaned princess.

When the First World War started, Ann had no illusions – her darling sewing machine was in danger as Russian army was well known for looting, so still new and shiny, Singer was wrapped in endless layers of oil cloth, packed in an old butter box and drowned in the pond, while empty wooden box was left open in the attick. 

Ann’s decission was wise as farm happened to stand right on the way of Russian and German armies the whole war. If my granny counted right, different armies walked in and out of their farm 17 times during the WWI. 

My grandomother, 1930

When all settled, the sewing machine emerged from the depths of the pond, but a lot of shine has gone, and rust had cut its teeth in. But it still worked, and was perfect to provide my grandma with fashionable outfits for her college years while she studied accountancy and farm management.

My mum 1937

When my grandma married, she took sewing machine with her, and produced many fancy outfits for her little precios princess (my mum). Sadly, her marriage also didn’t lasted long, but that’s another story (WWII, you know). My grandma spent hours on this sewing machine right until 1987, when she died, and my mum took over. 

Now this sewing machine belongs to my youngest daughter who is learning to sew on it right now.  

Ode to my Singer

For quite some time I was browsing internet trying to sort out my sewing machine.  See, it’s an old Singer. Of course, it’s a bit outdated and such, but no modern sewing machine I had been able to try out was able to convert me – I still believe in my old, sturdy friend.

 An old Singer is like a best warhorse – its durable, tolerates rough life and is so simple that I can clean and tidy it up all by myself. And in turn it just goes, goes for everything, without hesitation – on this one my parents made their first tent out of thick, impregnated canvas, I sew my first jeans (and some 300 later), endless leather bags and belts.... It conquered it all, without a complaint. 

Of course, you do not expect an old war horse do a fancy dressage steps or win the Grand National. So I must admit that lycra or  spandex are not exactly for my Singer. But I can live with that - I can always play with some modern, more advanced electric wonder. 

So I really wanted to find a manual for my old friend – I have also a large amount of different feet and attachments that I have no idea what for, so manual would be useful. 

But it wasn’t so easy. To find a manual, you need to know the model. But there are no model sign on my old one, only the serial number. Went through the Singer page and they say tere that for older machines you must ask them – they can check it on their records by serial number. Great! So I sent them an email quite a long time ago but no response. Then another one, and another.... Oh well, probably we’ll need to live without the manual. 

Then today, after linking on Confessions of a fabric addict, I did exactly what all this linking is about – browsed through other blogs, and their links to some others. I love web, sometimes you can find a real hidden treasures. So I was looking, reading, left few comments, until I noticed a comment regarding some spare parts for a Singer. So I wrote to the author, to some Connie McCaffery, in case, she has an idea where I might try my luck to find the model. 

And voila! Connie instantly responded and after the morning spent, sending mails back and forth, now I know. Connie even sent me the manual I had been searching for so long! 

My old warhorse is an early model 15, with Egyptian decals! Most likely made in 1910, Podolsk, Russia. 

Not a big deal? Not for me. Now, when I’ll be sewing the dress for my youngest daughter, I’ll close my eyes and will imagine my grandmother’s first baby grown being sewn on this machine when it was new and shiny by her mother. 

My 11 years old is the fifth generation of our family ladies, leaning over that wheel. Isn’t it cool?  Over hundred years of hard work and the machine is still doing perfectly! 

(Okay, I must admit, not absolutely perfect – the rubber on the bobbin wheel had been replaced about 40 years ago by using a wheel from my toy car, and now I need to find a new toy car with rubber wheels as that one gave up finally).