Welcome to singersewinginfo.co.uk

This site is provided as an information resource for people wanting to know more about domestic Singer sewing machines and their accessories. In particular it is aimed at the ever increasing number of more discerning machinists who are fed up with their modern ‘plastic’ machines and want to return to an era when they were in control, and not an electronic chip hidden inside the machine itself.  To a time when a beautiful black and gold icon provided a fully adjustable stitch, tension which was easy to adjust and calibrate, and when any old thread could be used top or bottom, whether it matched or not, was cotton or polyester, or even one of each.

Pre 1970 Singer sewing machines were engineered to last and they certainly have. OK you have to oil them occasionally, but at least you can get at the bobbin mechanism to remove the fluff, unlike modern machines which are assembled in such a way as to make it impossible to ever get them apart again. Heaven forbid should you ever break the needle and loose a bit of it inside a modern machine, or have the bobbin winding mechanism seize up. All in all, modern sewing machines have become far too complicated for their own good. Unless one is into elaborate embroidery, the need for a basic machine with a perfect lockstitch is all most seamstresses require, not the facility to produce lines of rather poor ‘swan’ motifs or the like. With modern all singing, all dancing machines, the manufacturers aim to talk us into agreeing to their eye-wateringly high price tags. I know you’re saying, ‘you get what you pay for’ but the early sewing machines often cost many months and in some cases even years’ wages, but they are still working. Will the modern ones be in 50 or 100 years time? I very much doubt it.

This site is divided into 5 sections.

• Domestic Singer sewing machines and their accessories produced between 1865 and approximately 1970, when the plastic machines appeared.
• Singer Featherweight models 221 and 222
• Miniature & toy sewing machines, many of which were inspired by the Singer model 20
• Antique sewing machines by other makers besides Singer.
• Singer Industrial Models

All the Singer sewing machines listed are low shank models. Singer marketed all their high production models with serial numbers which they referred to as ‘dates of birth’. Anyone interested in the development history of the Singer Sewing Machine Company can find a very good ‘time-line’ at www.singermachines.co.uk/faq/singer-sewing-machine-company-history/

In the section for Featherweight machines there is a list of Serial Numbers that were issued for models 221, 221K and 222K.

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