My New Baby
 

I got a Singer Featherweight 221k1 for my birthday!!! It was a bargain: 60€ (65$) It is in good condition and running sooo smoothly!
I found the listing for this machine on FB Marketplace just 5min from where my sister lives and she went to pick it up and gave it to me as a birthday present.
It dates from 1951 but it still has the celtic scroll faceplate.
It came with the case in good condition, the machine itself having only minimal rubbing to the decals. It also had the manual and the whole complement of feet (including the edge stitcher, a rarity in France)
The only thing to look at is the electric part, I would need to remove (and maybe replace) the 50s capacitors...

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That is lovely!

Happy birthday to you! Your new FW is a darling gift!

Wow. beautiful! And what a bargain! Toutes nos Felicitations!

What a wonderful birthday gift!!! I'm so happy for you :)
Happy Birthday!!!

That is beautiful and what an excellent price your sister paid

Very nice, great Sis !

Happy Birthday. What a great gift.

Why thank you everyone ☺️

What a beauty an what a bargain! I see many happy hours of sewing in your future.

A beautiful bargain to be sure!! Enjoy!!

happy birthday and congrats on the lovely 221 and welcome to the FW club!

Absolutely beautiful! So many congratulations, as well as a happy birthday being wished your way! :)

How exciting! I am still looking for one. I scan craigslist, market place, ebay, estate sales and garage sales. Someday I will find one that is in a comparable price range. I am so happy for you.

Thank you everyone :)

Juliasb: I've never seen a FW this cheap in France (well one white FW without the case and all chipped for 50€ but the ad was up for less than 10min lol); eventhough they sell for far less than across the Atlantic... My sister told me that when she went to pick the machine up, the lady who was selling told her that she should probably have asked for more money that she checked the selling prices after publishing the ad but luckily she was game and told my sister that it was her loss and my sister's gain and she let it go. Thing is the machine has a 110v motor (pre 1960s France was wired on 110v) and there was no power transformer with it so people would have tried to haggle the price if it had been over the 100€ mark... Luckily I have the one from my grandma's 15b so I'm good to go :)

Your lucky day for sure!

Oh Happy Birthday! What a lovely present. I am trying to find a bargain on a Featherweight table for mine and it doesn’t seem to be available in Illinois. I am patient so maybe I will get lucky!

Lucky you...what a beautiful machine.

Happy Birthday to you ..... what a great gift!

Thank you, it was a great gift and a lucky bargain to boot indeed!

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you !

Your new baby looks to be in tip top shape, what a lucky find and Happy Birthday!!!, you have already been spoilt by your sister.....Happy stitching!

This is a letter I received from a lady whom I purchased my featherweight from, and this letter states that you should Never turn the flywheel in Reverse. please read this letter of warning, you could save yourself some headaches. She is a dressmaker and used this machine to make doll clothes for the porcelain doll business her family had. They closed their business some years ago, and sold me her featherweight which was previously her mothers.



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Thanks for the tip! That is something we should all know but it's always good to be told again, the temptation can be great 😊

Happy Birthday you are so lucky to have that beautiful machine.

Love her. Oh and about that little "Screw on the Plate where the bed folds up"!! I made a little batting filled Yo-Yo to put on it so it doesn't scratch the bed of my featherweight.

Good thinking tuckyquilter! Do you mind posting a picture of your Yo-Yo so that I can try and do the same?

:eek: Today I undertook to remove the old capacitor from underneath the bed and horror! I found that the wires connecting the lamp had their plastic casing all melted and the wires were bare all through!! Thanks to the tutorials from The Singer Featherweight Shop I managed to dismantle the whole thing, there was a lot of melted plastic to remove but now it's all clean and tomorrow I will rewire the lamp... hopefully I didn't mess with anything major and she will be able to run fine and safe! *crossing fingers*

:( :eek: :hunf: Yuk, that's horrible to find in that condition. Maybe it wasn't the great deal as initially thought. Still not bad.

Glad you found the tutorials. Hopefully, it will go smoothly for you and will soon have it purring nicely,


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

Happy birthday, and good luck with your wiring! Hopefully that will be all she needs for many years to come.

This was something to be expected... The machine had obviously been stored in not too great conditions for years and I suspect it had been plugged on 220v a couple of times...
When I removed the bulb I noticed it was a 25 watts bulb (although a Singer original) and I was wondering if it is not too strong. On all my other machines it is recommended to use a 15 watts bulb but I couldn't seem to find any information about that in the manual. What do you think?
In any case I'm ordering a led bulb to avoid any overheating in the future 😉

After an hour or two and 1.5€ worth of electrical wire, she is as good as new.
While she was bare of electrical, I gave her a good cleaning / polishing 😊