Antique Serging

Back in January when I had a whirlwind Saturday, I wrote about a Singer 75-1 that I brought home. I did manage to get it cleaned up but not stitching. I needed somewhere to put the thread, some kind of thread holder like modern sergers use. Thankfully, I found one for only $5 and it arrived yesterday so I had to try it out. The pegs for the spools were pretty big so I needed to switch to cones of thread. This also meant I had to rethread and six weeks was too long to remember. I found a manual online but there is no diagram, only a written explanation for threading and that's a challenge to translate from over 100 years ago. That's right, she is dated back to 1904.

Front opened

With a little perseverance I got it to form stitches on the finger so I ran downstairs to find some fabric to sew on. This is not a machine that will cut and overlock at the same time so the finished edge needs to be up against a guide that is screwed in place. When I put the fabric in place and turned the wheel towards me, as any Singer home sewing machine would do, the fabric moved towards me instead of away from me under the presser foot: I had been turning the wheel the wrong way! It's a marvel that it would stitch at all! Now moving the wheel clockwise the fabric feed through and made an overlock stitch. One of the threads wasn't engaged but who cares? It stitched fine with two threads!

Singer 75-1

After looking at the stitch sample the next day I could see it wasn't even so adjusting the top tension corrected the unevenness. It was meant to be in a treadle but it is so small I can't imagine one with an opening that size. I hope I can find some type of handle to insert into the small handwheel. There is a hole in the wheel so I think there's an off-chance I can come up with something.

Handwheel

I'm just so excited to have found this tiny gem that only does one thing but since 1904 it still does it so well.

Back of Singer 75