What have I got here?
 

My husband bought a 'lot' of old Singer feet the other day, including a big old buttonholer with cams, and misc. other stuff. Two feet had part numbers, which turned out to be for a featherweight. A couple of others I identified from photos on eBay.

The one below, plus a random piece that came off something else unidentified, has me stumped. By the way, the ruffler/pleater foot is a work of art, but how does one learn to use it?

The bigger black piece is a blackside adjustable hemmer, and the small silver gizmo is a bias cutting gauge. You put it on your scissors, adjust the gauge to the size you need and cut bias strips. The strips are fed into the binder attachment to sew on the edge of your project. I have them for my Singer 66 but not for my featherweight. There are many YouTube videos showing you how to do this. The Featherweight shop also has tutorials.

Wow! I never knew this sort of stuff was out there, tho I do know when machines were first sold for in-home use they tried to let users do what the professional machines had been doing. My own sewing has been much more basic than this, sadly.

This might help you to use the ruffler/pleater foot.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=how+to+use+a+ruffler%2Fpleater+attachment#kpva lbx=_ltQ8XYmrBaKE9PwPxo-LiA86

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp2Dim2wJK4

Most of the Singer feet have numbers on them. Sometimes it is really hard to find or read them. I have a list for the attachments that generally came with machines. The numbers are the same for the domestic 15s, 66, 99, 101, 115, 127, 128, 201 and 221 (FW). There is a difference for the narrow hemmer. I think I figured out why some use 120842 and others use 120855. It depends on which direction the thread is threaded through the needle. In addition to the narrow hemmer, the attachments that came with these machines would be the multi-slotted binder, the edge stitcher, the gatherer, the adjustable hemmer and frequently the ruffler (I think that sometimes the ruffler was an optional item or could be had for additional cost).

Most of the instruction manuals for these machines had the instructions for the basic attachments. Most of the manuals for these machines can be downloaded from https://www.singer.com/support Please note that the instruction manual for the 115 at this site is not for the 115s that were made from 1912-1935.

Lots of neat attachments and fashion aids were available for the old straight stitch machines. Most will work with any of the models listed above (in green). I did read recently that the pinking attachment would not work correctly for the 101. There is a neat booklet put out by Singer in the 1950s that shows how to use attachments and fashion aids. I believe the booklet was part of the "classes" that came with the purchase of a new sewing machine. I found a pdf of it at http://ismacs.net/singer_sewing_mach...rence-book.pdf The Smithsonian also has instructions for various feet for sewing machines at https://www.sil.si.edu/DigitalCollec.../sil10-218.pdf This one has the feet that came with adapter so one could change the feet without unscrewing the thumb screw that attached to the presser foot bar. It also shows the "bias cutting gauge" on page 10. I tried it years ago, but had a hard time finding scissors that it would work on. I wasn't impressed.

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