Old Faithful lives in my sewing room! This is the machine Sandy and I learned to sew on, isn’t it beautiful?
Old Faithful has been with us throughout our lives. She helped make Kindergarten smocks when we didn’t even know how to sew. She acted as our quilting mentor and helped us learn how to sew a straight stitch. She mended jeans, helped complete Home Economics projects, made prom dresses, hemmed mini skirts, repaired blanket bindings and the list goes on!
Old Faithful was made in 1956 and has a nice sewing cabinet to live in. The cabinet is being refinished well, I mean, at least I started to refinish it! So Old Faithful sits on a counter overlooking Inspiration Point (aka my sewing room) until she is back home in her original sewing cabinet.
Old Faithful has all metal parts and attachments. The attachments still work, even the one that makes ruffles! I remember when ruffles were the fashion rage (whew, glad that fashion statement rests in the past!) and I made a long dress with a big ruffle. I thought I was such a seamstress using the ruffle attachment with yards and yards of fabric! I just hummed along letting Old Faithful do all the gathering work.
Mom has always been good about saving manuals and original boxes. The manual below contained all the information about how to use Old Faithful and her attachments. We didn’t need the Internet, we had a hard copy manual!
Since Old Faithful has been so good to us, I decided to make a quilted cover for her until I get the cabinet refinished. I’ve been playing with pinwheel designs and here is what I started.
Once I complete this cover, I’ll show you the final product. I am going to practice some Lori Kennedy quilting stitches to spice it up.
What machine did you learn to sew on? Let us know about the Old Faithful in your life!
I have the old sewing machine that my mother bought about 50 years ago. She could not sew, but she bought it for us all, since back then we had things like Home Ec. It is still an awesome machine that sews the best straight lines. For many years it was all that I had. I love it. Thanks for sharing and bringing back some memories.
Thanks, Lori! It’s nice you still have your mom’s sewing machine, what a treasure!
I remember Home Economics! I have so much fun in school in class and made an awful unwearable piece of clothing. But I loved when we baked things. I wonder if kids take this kind of class anymore. Our school was progress and we took a 1/2 year of Home Ec and a 1/2 year of Woodshop – it was hysterical to have boys in Home Ec and to have girls in Woodshop (but I made a cool but useless shelf-like thing). Your old sewing machine is wonderful to see and all the parts of it, thanks for sharing this! I like your pretty pinwheel cover in progress and the colors.
I think Home Ec is now called Family and Consumer Science…yikes! I’m not sure they even have Woodshop anymore, maybe it’s called some other name we don’t recognize!
Oh Old Faithful is beautiful! It is funny, just last week I was visiting my mother and she gave me her Singer to take home! It is a 1968 model and looks similar to yours. It is the machine I grew up with and my mom taught me to sew on. It still runs and is so nice to have. My machine is a White from the early ’90s and the dials don’t turn any more so I am ordering a brother cs6000i (best I can afford at moment) are you familiar with it? What sewing machines do you have now?
I am not familiar with the Brother line. When my one and only son went to college I was sad about being an empty nester so I started quilting in earnest. I looked around and bought a Bernina 145S. It was a classroom model that had a few hours of sewing on it and the store wanted it gone so I got it for a really good price. It has thousands of sewing hours now and it still hums along just fine!