White, Mason, Jones

I have three machines of the White vibrating shuttle design. One is made by White (model VS2-b), one is by Jones (Medium CS) and one by A.G. Mason (Defender). They were all made some time between 1889 and 1911, they all have a long arm vibrating shuttle design, but other details vary. So how do…

Mundlos 100

This is a full size vibrating shuttle machine based on New Home design. Mundlos serial number is 1816620, and according to fiddlebase.com it puts it right into the middle of World War II in 1942-43. The machine was branded "Empire" - I refreshed the lettering and added "Mundlos" because I like to see the maker's…

Two paperclips, an in-betweener, a pique and a sleeping beauty

Yep, they are like busses - always arriving together. But five "new" sewing machines turning up within two weeks, that's a record! 😳 The interloper After I talked myself into "needing" an old refurbished Singer 27K "Paperclip", I accidentally got two instead of one. 😮 The first one is now known as The Interloper: it is…

My secret weapon

I have four long bobbin machines, five if you count the little one too. Three are vibrating shuttle machines, one is a cylindrical transverse shuttle - all four "medium" tailors' machines. The fifth one is a Wittler hybrid - a transverse vibrating shuttle. These five machines between them not only can sew any fabric under…

That elusive flexible stitch

Flexible stitch is necessary for sewing jersey so that it would stretch with the material. However, regular straight stitch of a lockstitch machine is usually not flexible. So what to do? Popular solutions include using elastic thread, sewing with narrow zig-zag instead of straight stitch or sewing with an overlocker. But what if you really…

Jones needles and bobbins for CS and Spool

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…