Vintage sewing machine adventures, part 2 – Identifying the parts

One of the first things I did with the sewing machine was to empty the drawers and sort the contents into sewing machine parts and everything else. The first picture below shows what I first thought were all the sewing machine related parts (not including bobbins, screwdrivers, needles and the lint brush since those didn’t require any research to identify).

The attachments

My next task was to work out what each of these was. Two things made this reasonably straightforward. Firstly, the sewing machine came with its manual, which has pictures of most of the parts in use.  Secondly, this is a Singer machine. All Singer parts are stamped with “Simanco” and the serial number of the part. A quick trip to Google to search for serial numbers and most of the rest were identified.

The harder part is going to be working out how to use them!

Below is a full inventory of the attachments I have with pictures and serial numbers in case this helps anyone else trying to identify parts.

The inventory:

Presser foot (45321) — standard sewing foot

Singer presser foot

Gather foot (121441) — for creating gathers in light fabrics

Singer gather foot

Under braider (121547) — for sewing cord or braid to fabric

Singer under braider

Binder (121464) — for attaching binding to the edge of fabric

Singer binder foot

Foot hemmer (120842) — simultaneously folds and sews a hem

Singer foot hemmer

Adjustable hemmer (35931) — sews hems up to 1″ wide using guide or wider without

Singer adjustable hemmer

Quilter (35932) — adjustable gauge to help keep lines of quilting at equal distances

Singer quilter

Needle threader (121632) — does exactly what it says on the tin! (or would, if I could figure out the instructions)

Singer needle threader

Singercraft guide (120987) — possibly the least usefully named attachment. According to the instructions, “no special skill is needed” to use it and by wrapping wool, rags or old stockings around it and sewing down the length of the guide, you can create “rugs, tea cosies, mats, babies’ cot covers, etc.”

Singer craft guide

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