Its been a while since I've posted....
WE'VE BEEN MOVING!
I'm really excited to get out of our tiny apartment and into a big house! I'll get my own craft room to do my jewelry, my sewing (exciting news on that below), painting, new embroidery projects (more on that below), and all around crafting. So exciting!!
Yesterday hubby and I went to my dad's house so I could pack up the china cabinet, toss the things stored in a beautiful bird's eye maple dresser, and go through my mom's sewing desk (all of which I will be taking). The very expensive china and silverware were missing (grr!) from the china cabinet...Totally sucks! But, I did score some cool old books from the late 1800's- early 1900's (one of them is a music book from 1898 in PERFECT condition!) and the winner of the day: an antique Singer 221 Featherweight sewing machine woo-hoo! I'm having a hard time figuring out exactly what I have though. The manual, which I would assume to be original, has the last copyright date of 1941 (which would make me believe the machine dates 1941-1942). My machine has a plate on it called "Egyptian Scroll" which is found on the earlier machines but the later ones (like post-WWII) have a boring 'striped' plate. My serial number dated the machine to September 1956 (Per Singer. Though they couldn't explain why I had the Eqyptian plate or really...any more info than date and location of manufacture). All machines I have been able to find with the Eqyptian Scroll are either from the 1940s or the one I found from 51 or 52 I think. So from all the research I've done, my machine CANNOT be from 1956! I know the plate looks like it can probably be changed but I know for a fact it has not been. The previous owner is a friend of the family so I can confirm that not only was the machine hardly used, but nothing on it has been changed. I am pretty much pulling my hair out over this haha.
Anyways, I also found a stash of tons of embroidery thread my mom purchased sometime that I'll use for maybe some 'alternative embroidery.' Ya know...things a little edgier than "home sweet home" and all that mess. We'll see what I come up with :)
The scroll face plate can be changed extremely easily. However, the face plates were put in a bin in the factory, and when the new ones on top were used up, the old ones on the bottom were used. Since no machines were made or sold in the USA after 1943 until the end of WWII, old 1930s face plates were still in the bins when production began again. The serial number is the date key and was put on the machine body when it was cast.
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