Sewing with my great-grandmother’s Singer Featherweight machine!

Have you ever heard of what is arguably the most popular vintage sewing machine – the Singer Featherweight?

If you read my post about how to start making your own clothes, you might have noticed that is the machine I use!

I was lucky enough that, when I wanted to start sewing, my mom gave me my great-grandmother’s Singer Featherweight! Though I didn’t know what it was at the time, over the years I absolutely fell in love with it.

Today I’m going to tell you guys the story of when I acquired this amazing little machine and why I love it so much more than any of my other machines!

How I got my Singer Featherweight!

A handful of years back, I decided to get back into sewing. I had done some in my youth – of course we’d had sewing class in school, and I’d also used my mom’s machine at home sometimes. But it’d been so long that I felt like a total beginner!

When I expressed to my mom that I wanted to sew again, she told me she had a machine from grandma. Apparently, it was a nice little machine that had belonged to my great-grandmother. My mom already had her own machine, so she lent this one to me.

Little did I know that I was being handed a Singer Featherweight!

The sought-after vintage sewing machine

Singer Featherweights are one of the most sought-after vintage/antique sewing machines. Back in the 30s, 40s, and 50s, they were marketed as a portable sewing machine that were relatively lightweight – thus, the Featherweight name. However, despite the name, they are NOT light as a feather! Like anything made back in the golden era (AKA, when things were actually MADE in the U.S.), the Featherweight is a rock solid tank of a machine. It’s certainly not light, but it is light enough to be portable.

In addition to being made well, the machines also sew so beautifully. Although they only do one type of stitch (the straight stitch), the stitches come out stunning every time, and the machine runs so satisfyingly smooth.

Perhaps because of their convenient portability and the quality of the work they produce, people nowadays seem to be obsessed with them! Go on eBay and you’ll see just how expensive they are. Right now, they are listed consistently at $450-$500! How lucky I was that my grandma held onto her mom’s sewing machine for all these years.

Some family history

My grandma grew up in the WWII era. She was a Dutch girl born in the Dutch East Indies, but her family had to leave because of growing war tensions in the Pacific. Her father was quite the businessman, so he seemed to find work in all kinds of locations. They went to Montana, then Rio de Janeiro, then to New York, where she met my grandfather. I’m not sure when her mom acquired the sewing machine, but I have a feeling she desired it for their traveling lifestyle.

Grandma tells me her mom would make her and her sisters all kinds of clothes with this little machine. To me, it’s so amazing (and insane!) that I am making my own clothes (and definitely clothes for my future babies!) with the same machine my great-grandmother used to make clothes for my grandma, who is now just about to turn 98 years old.

Stuff was just made so much better back in those days! Made to last.

Staying old-fashioned

Sewing with a vintage machine that has such rich personal family history to me helps me feel connected to a time when things were simpler and, I think, more beautiful. I’ve always been an old-fashioned girl and I seem to become only more so as I age!

Especially with the daily distractions and busy-ness of our day-to-day life, I find it so grounding to sit down and sew on a machine which seems to be timeless, and that works just as well today as it did in 1941 (apparently, that’s when my machine was produced!).

My machine even has the original instruction manuals, which give directions in a concise yet thorough manner. I love seeing “Made in the U.S.A.” printed at the bottom! It’s a rare sight nowadays, especially on machinery like a sewing machine.

Singer Featherweight perks!

So, I mentioned before that Featherweights only do a straight stitch. Well, that’s only part of the truth! The Singer Company made tons of attachments for their machines for improved versatility. With a bit of hunting on eBay, I was able to buy zigzag and buttonholer attachments for my Featherweight, as well as various other presser-foot attachments. These all attach to the presser-foot bar. With these amazing attachments, I’m able to make:

• Various sizes of buttonholes
• Zigzag and decorative stitches
• Precise edge-stitching
• Hems without ironing
• Ruffles
• Pleats
• Gathers

There is also a blind-stitch attachment that I got off eBay which I have yet to try!

This is all to say that if you fancy buying a Featherweight, you definitely are NOT limited to a basic sewing machine. Plus, more than a modern machine, I find it to be SO much fun to use these attachments. The level of ingenuity and engineering that went into making them is incredible! It’s all purely mechanical and pre our modern programming and digitalization, and for some reason I find that so satisfying!

Singer Featherweight Resources

What do you guys think about Singer Featherweights? Do you own one yourself? Do you want to? Or do you use another type of vintage/antique sewing machine? I’d LOVE to hear about your experiences in the comments. Also, please let me know if you have any questions regarding the Featherweight. I only scratched the surface with this post, which was mainly intended as a love letter to my amazing little machine.

Here are some really good Featherweight resources:

• The Featherweight Shop: An amazing online store for all things Featherweight! Their prices are high for attachments, so I’d recommend eBay instead for those. But they have great supplies and replacement parts, such as lightbulbs, belts, oil, grease, etc. They even have some tutorials on there!
• This link or this link for dating your Singer Featherweight. The serial number is located on the bottom of the machine. These give researched approximate dates of production, which is how I found out mine was likely produced in 1941.

Thankfully, since the Singer Featherweight has become so popular in the modern day, it is not difficult at all to obtain parts and accessories for it!

My final thoughts

I really hope you guys have enjoyed reading about my great-grandmother’s Singer Featherweight machine. I genuinely feel having it adds so much meaning to my sewing endeavors!

Plus, I am seriously getting to a place where I want everything I own to be at least like, forty years old, and older if possible, lol! Walking through today’s stores and seeing the sheer amount of plastic that makes up our everyday goods is so disheartening to me. It just feels fake, you know?

Not to mention, today’s day and age is also a throwaway society, when manufacturers actually produce products with less quality and the intention that they will break or become outdated and thus you’ll need to buy again in the near future. If my great-grandmother’s Singer Featherweight isn’t proof that stuff made back in the first half of the twentieth century was made to last, I’m not sure what is!

C’mon guys, join me in the rebellion against our throwaway and cheap modern time. If you want a Singer Featherweight, they will run you several hundred dollars, but keep your eye on Craigslist. You never know, you might find a good buy! Plus, similar Singer models or vintage sewing machines run a lot cheaper and have the same quality, they’re just not collectible and sought after like the Featherweights are.

Please please please share your comments, experiences, and questions down below; I’d absolutely love to hear from you!