miriam

Don't get me into trouble... Again... Besides I'm pretty much not selling machines for now. I have elderly parents to take care of.

You have enough time to search around and you might be surprised what turns up.

For my 10 year old grand daughter, Miss M, we set up one of the old Singer 99s with HC, a Singer 15 and a clone. Oops she turned 11. But anyway, she keeps going back to the Singer 99 with the hand crank. Then when Phil pieced a block for Rodney, he borrowed it, too. Now it sits handy for who ever wants to use it. Miss L (8) preferred the Singer 15 no HC. Big sister Miss G (14) uses an old electric clone. They all ogled the Cinderella, but after looking it over decided to use better machines. A side note. I thought Miss G would love a Singer 404 but she hated it with a passion. I thought she could learn on that then go into one with fancy stitches... There is no accounting for tastes each kid is going to be different. Me being frugal and lazy, I would try to find a clone. They are easy to use and maintain. There are some very cool old Japanese machines that aren't clones. who knows you might get lucky and find something pink. Most sewing - maybe 99% is straight stitch. For a while it will be all she can do to master that. In a few years she might like one of the Singer slant series machines. You can pick up touch and sew machines very cheap. Stick with one that has metal gears or has been refurbished if it has plastic. The most important thing with a t & s is to find a manual and to use the manual. The good thing about upgrading a vintage machine is you can likely get your money back out of it.

It sounds like you are having too do this at a distance, that can be tough to know her needs, wants and abilities. Keep it simple. My DGKs are around quite a bit so I have a pretty good idea what they like - even then I can be very wrong.

Wilbur likes the Singer 128 because it has a 'rocket' for a bobbin... He's into anything that flys. He will turn 6 this week. Walter gets his hands all over knobs, levers and buttons. If he were to choose it would be a Japanese machine with a dashboard, I'm sure of it. I caught him resetting half the machines on a shelf one day. Ggggrrrrr he will be four just after Thanksgiving. Emma is not allowed anywhere near anybody's sewing machine. She is an 18 mo old terrorist. The other DGKs aren't allowed to go near anything dangerous probably because mommy is afraid of sewing machines, too... Sigh.

The right machine can be what will motivate any young sewist boy or girl to sew. If you are comfortable with some machine or another the kid will be more likely to be comfortable. If you don't like/love vintage machines, go to Walmart and find something.