Embroidering with Vintage Machines?
 

Does anyone use their VSM for embroidery? I have a 15-91 I'd like to use, but I cannot find any sites or tutorials for machine embroidery with VSM. I'm not quite sure how to search it honestly. 😅

There is a section called "Fashion Stitches" in the Sewing Skills booklet found at http://ismacs.net/singer_sewing_mach...rence-book.pdf would give you a start. Maybe search for Thread Painting or Thread Sketching. I know there is a vintage hardback book that I think may have been put out by Singer about machine embroidery/art but I can't remember the name of it. One of the members of our Colorado group has it, but won't be there this month.

Janey - Neat people never make the exciting discoveries I do.

There are some neat online videos of people doing it with vintage machines. I have several vintage instruction books for doing it, and hope some day to have time (like when I'm retired) to work through them. It's not going to be a fast process, that is for sure! It's a lot like FMQ if you've done that, just way closer together.

The one I have is Singer Instructions for Art Embroidery and Lace Work. First copywrite date is 1922, and on mine the last date is 1941. I know earlier versions of this are quite collectable. I watched for some time on eBay and got mine and a reasonable cost.

I have done some monogramming, a subset of embroidery, with a Singer 401 and its monogramming attachment. It's like using a buttonholer, but with a different set of cams. I would like to find the above Singer book, but the dates indicated would mean that it would feature straight stitch vsm's. It would seem to me that it would be better done on a zz machine where stitch width could be varied.

John Thomas in NC

Search for "free motion embroidery on treadle sewing machine" in Google. There are quite a few videos to choose from. Here is one I did on a vintage Necchi - I removed the foot so the needle was bare as they demonstrat in the videos for the treadle machine. Notice that the embroidery hoop is wrapped with cotton fabric so that the base fabric is taught and stays taught.

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It is a fun thing to do.

I have this same book with the first copyright date also being 1922 and the last one being 1937 so a wee bit earlier than the one Cathy has. It's divided into 5 courses of study so presumably you could work you way through the book and learn a lot of different methods. It even has some color photos which was a surprise for me. And there was also a lesson on embroidering on very thin wood (oak) veneer. It was a horse's head and neck. I could not believe that one! One of these days I might actually try some of these lessons.

Judythesewer: Your embroidery piece is wonderful!

I remember a women rewiring a 201 for free motion embroidery. She did it with out a hoop and was quite experienced. She went from a modern machine to an old cast iron model with black japanning, because she had taken a liking to them and thought about it for some time. She mostly worked with tension to begin with and reported back she had adopted to her "new" machine. I don't think she used any special tutorials or embroidery groups for it. I remember she found a new open toe foot she liked, but she had more than one. A 201 isn't an obvious choice for FME, it's often model 15 like your 15-91. There are some fantastic videos on older 15 treadles to be watched. I have never been able to do anything like JudyTheSewer, I'm very impressed by the neat stitching.

What beautiful work you do, Judy!

Thanks to all who responded. I found a lady on YouTube, Marilyn Lee, I think, is her name. She embroiders with a treadle. I think it will be mostly the same concept.