Textima Veritas 8014

Sep 17, 2020Sep 17, 2020 Elena6 Comments

A humble 1960s sewing machine from DDR... but why does it fetch £150 at auction? Textima VEB was created after WWII in East Germany by merging various local sewing machine manufacturers (largely stripped of all their machinery in post-war reparations). Notably, that included Clemens Müller and Naumann from Dresden and Singer from Wittenberge. Crême de… Continue reading Textima Veritas 8014

Adjusting timing · Fancy stitches · Feed dog height adjustment · Feet · Pfaff · Tension adjustment · Vertical rotary hook

Pfaff 230 Automatic

Feb 4, 2020Jul 6, 2020 Elena15 Comments

This is one of the great classics from 1955: Pfaff 230 Automatic, not to be confused with Pfaff 230 that didn't have any fancy stitches. This machine has signature Pfaff forward-facing vertical rotary hook with internal belt transmission. Zig-zag is done with a swing needle mechanism and all the fancy stuff is in the arm.… Continue reading Pfaff 230 Automatic

Adler · Vertical rotary hook · Zig-zag mechanics

I found The One!

Jan 25, 2020Jan 25, 2020 Elena48 Comments

This is a strong statement. We all search for The One And Only sewing machine that would replace all other sewing machines for us. It would do everything we care to do, perfectly. Having used so many machines over the years, I have all but given up on finding The One. Not even The One… Continue reading I found The One!

Horizontal oscillating hook · Horizontal rotary hook · Vertical oscillating hook · Vertical rotary hook · Zig-zag mechanics · Zig-zag timing

Zig-zag hooks and their strengths and weaknesses

Aug 18, 2018Jan 25, 2020 Elena19 Comments

All zig-zag machines that I've got, are round bobbin. I know of one transverse shuttle zig-zag machine: it is by Seidel & Neumann, see http://www.naehmaschine-antik.de. Round bobbin hooks can be classified like this: rotary versus oscillating, vertical versus horizontal, side-facing versus front-facing. Rotary and oscillating hooks have very similar performance characteristics when the other two… Continue reading Zig-zag hooks and their strengths and weaknesses

Jones · Singer · Vertical rotary hook

The D9 and its incarnations

Jun 10, 2018Jan 23, 2020 Elena3 Comments

Wheeler & Wilson' D9 was a very successful rotary machine - and was reproduced and modified by many manufacturers. Wheeler & Wilson themselves produced many versions of this machine and kept improving various aspects of it as time went on. In 1905 Singer took over Wheeler & Wilson and in turn produced some D9-based machines… Continue reading The D9 and its incarnations

Bobbins · Jones · Needles · Vertical rotary hook · Vibrating shuttle

Jones needles and bobbins for CS and Spool

Mar 22, 2018Mar 1, 2020 Elena14 Comments

Jones was one of the oldest British sewing machine manufacturers, established in 1859 in Greater Manchester. Jones produced a number of classes of sewing machines, but I have only worked with cylinder shuttle (CS) and rotary (Spool), so this post focuses on them. Jones CS is a vibrating shuttle machine after a White design, named… Continue reading Jones needles and bobbins for CS and Spool