asabrinao

Hi, All,

No questions here, just wanted to gush a little. I recently fell back in love with my first love: a cast iron white rotary machine. I've been told it was one of the first models of electric sewing machines and that it's dated either 1913 or 1918. I bought it for $25 in a Seattle vintage shop in September of 2000. I'd just graduated from college, was living in a city for the first time in my life, and knew not one thing about machine sewing. I bought the machine on a whim and sewed my first quilt on it (which I still have, though it needs some patching).

I moved A LOT in my twenties and my White ended up in my mother's basement. I rescued it from there recently, almost sold it, but instead had it tuned up and used it last night for the first time in ten years. Even though I now have four machines total (Juki 2010, Juki F400, Janome MyStyle), I'm SO glad I didn't surrender this machine. Sure, it's loud and it's heavy, but it sews a stunningly beautiful stitch and has this satisfying chugga-chugga sound as it feeds the material. It was sewing through six layers of duck cloth without missing a beat!

Just wanted to share!

Best,
A

Rodney

Good for you! It's always nice to get together with an old friend.
Seattle? Are you still in the area?
Rodney

Freaky_Quilts_Dragon

Oh yes, gotta love the olde-but-goodies. Especially that they can sew through *anything*. When I tell people at fabric shops that my antique machines can go through 8 layers of denim without batting an eye, they always look stunned.

yobrosew

Should you ever go treadle, you have the best machine for it. Then it will run whisper quiet for you! Have fun and congrats on rekindling the flame of this old lover.

asabrinao

Hi, Rodney,

Alas, no longer in Seattle. I only lived there a year, before moving to Montana. I live in Ohio now. If I remember correctly, there used to be this wonderful quilt shop near Pike Place. Is it still there?

Best,
A
A

asabrinao

I do? Hmmm....Something to think about.....

purplefiend

I have a 1917 White Rotary treadle, it had a motor on it when a friend gave it to me. I bought a treadle cabinet for as soon as I could.
The machine was in the family home since it was new, well cared for and always inside. It was a treadle when new and the motor was installed sometime in 1930 or a little earlier. It was too heavy to keep lifting and putting on a table to sew with. Its a wonderful machine, was quite an adjustment for me, only ever sewed with Singer treadles.

I am currently piecing log cabin blocks with "Susie.".
Sharon in Texas