Singer Sewing Centers

[danemodsandy]

Joe:

Curtains are easy - almost always all straight seams.

There are books on the subject, and sneaking peeks when you're in a house with custom window treatments will teach you a lot, too - I learned to make lined cafe curtains that way.

It only gets tricky when you get up into stuff like pinch-pleated draperies, where your measuring and your math had better be right, or your result can be unusable. But even pinch pleats are more a matter of time and attention than any huge skill.

And in this age of jawdroppingly shoddy ready-mades that come in a pathetically small range of sizes, it's hugely satisfactory to have curtains that fit, and which have linings to make them all look uniform from the street. If you'll go to a ritzy part of town (just a visit - we don't want to lose you, LOL), that's one of the first things you notice about the homes of the rich - the windows are well-dressed and all of them look alike from outside.

 

[whirlcool]

My mother had a trick for pinch pleat draperies that always worked great.

At fabric stores you can find this cloth tape that has very narrow pockets every inch or two across the 3 or 4 inch wide tape. You just sew this tape across the top of each curtain panel. To hang the drapes you buy these curtain hooks that have 4 or 5 "fingers" on them. Each finger goes into one pocket on the tape. Voila! Instant pinch pleated draperies. And you can also remove the hooks and wash the drapes without having to worry about losing the pleats.

Curtains are really the easiest thing to make. You just need to make sure you use at least 1.5 or 2 times the amount of material than there is window width. All you really have to do is zigzag the edges (so the fabric doesn't unravel) and then just hem the ends with a straight stitch. It couldn't be easier!

The only thing is that curtains made yourself will likely be just as expensive or more so than store bought curtains. BUT, your's will last for many more years and will look so much better.

 

[retromania]

Joel,

You have received a lot of excellent advice. Another suggestion would be to go to any store that sells cloth and look for a sale table of scraps of fabric (remnants)and buy a couple yards and practice. Again, curtain and drapery contruction is usually outlined in a comprehensive sewing book. Also and certainly more convenient, you can enter subject matter in your search box and find complete instructions. Since you already have some sewing experience doing repairs, it should not be that difficult for you.

Good luck and let us hear!

 

[whirlcool]

And I have found that the ladies that work in the fabric stores usually bend over backwards to help a guy out. And they give great advice to you if you tell them what your project is. I've received some of the best customer service I have ever seen in a fabric store.

 

[retromania]

Whirlcool's Comment

He is right. Ususally the ladies in a cloth store are so thrilled that a guy who sews came in, they do go out of their way.

 

[danemodsandy]

That's the Usual Response, But.....

....I've also had a few occasions over the years (I've been at this since 1975) where a female staffer in a fabric store thought she'd show Mr. Home Sewer a thing or two.

It usually clears up when I ask to see some fabrics whose names most people don't know any more. "Tarletan," "gazar" and "voile" are generally enough to do the trick.

The expression on the dragon lady's face after that can usually be read as: "Well, I still think havin' a man in here is freaky, but he's a freak that knows what he's talkin' about. Hmpf!"

 

[retromania]

Sandy. I love you!!! lollll

 

[ovrphil]

Textiles...I can easily spend hours in fabric shops; I have seen many fabric names, but the gazar isn't familiar to me, but then the sewing I've done isn't high fashion, centering around maybe wedding dresses or formal gowns. You go, Sandy!

 

[programcomputer]

The END of the Singer Sewing Centers

I have not posted in a very long while, but a few collectors and I were discussing this a while back about the end of the Singer Vacuums portion as we knew it in the stores around 1981 or so. This was also when many feel they started seeing the SSC's all going bye bye. I seem to remember ours where I grew up lasting until 1982-83 or so. They still had vacuums right up until the very end tho. Many different models that just wouldn't sell. The vacuums were in the same boat as the machines. You HAD to buy one from a SSC, and if you hadn't one near you you didn't get to buy one. Also, Singer vacuums were overpriced too in comparison to some models of Hoover and Eureka. JUst a few extra cents worth...

 

[alr2903]

LOL, Singer actually sent you a "credit card" good at their stores. I still have mine. DanemodSandy i  too, bought the one i could afford in the early 1980's, still have the machine too.  alr

 

[tolivac]

Lending out your sewing machine-guess is just as forbidden as a hunter lending out his favorite rifle or hunting knife!Yes,I do the curtain thing-but get the factory ones-they aren't wide enough for my window-so got the panels I needed-then sewed them together with the yard sale Necci-worked just fine.when I mentioned the making or sewing of curtains to Mike at the Sew&Vac store-thats when he showed me the commercial Pfaff that could go to 1800 stitches per minute!-that is almost too fast-yes it could sew MILES of cloth in a short time.And of course when you set the tensions of your machine you don't want someone else to mess it up.At some point will try the curtains from scratch.The making of clothes does sound scary!!My Mom did it when I was a child-she made clothes for herself,and us kids.She used the various brands of patterns-sort of remember her pinning the paper pattern to the cloth-then cutting the parts out-and sewing them together.

 

[whirlcool]

I remember the JCPenny store we used to shop at when I was a kid had a huge selection of Simplicity patterns to choose from. My mom would buy her patterns there sometimes.

Believe me, after that loan out incident with our sewing machine it has never been loaned out again. What was that woman who we loaned the machine to thinking?

We didn't have any patterns when we made the slip covers for the chairs & sofas in our den. We had to do that ourselves. We used brown paper bag material for that. But those slip covers fit almost as good as the original fabric does. And 25 years later they are still giving good service. We wash them 3 or 4 times per year.

 

[retromania]

Brings back memories....

This all brings back memories of my childhood days. My mother was an easy-going mother, but don't touch her machine. She would say: "I've got eveything set up just like I want it!" I'm 50 and my sister is 58. She went thru a little chubby period when she was about thirteen. Since there was no ready-to-wear for chubby girls or guys too I guess for that matter, my mother sewed all her clothes. That's when my mother bought the buttonholer for her old machine. I remember and old machine and a modern attachment in the turquois box. Anyway, sister out grew her chubbiness and Mom then sewed her formals for the high school dances. After my dad died and my mother went back to teaching, she only sewed in the summer and it was usually curtains or slip covers. The last thing she sewed before going into assisted-living four years ago was a poodle skirt for my sister to wear to her job when they had a 1950's day. Babble. Babble. Babble. Sorry y'all!

 

[MrX]

There still is one here in Cork, Ireland although I suspect it may be simply historic branding on an independent store.
They've loads of classic old sewing machines in the front window and seem to still do service and repair machines.

There's probably been a bit of a resurgence of sewing as a hobby here. I know quite a few creative types (mostly female) who make really crazy stuff for their own personal wardrobes.

 

[MrX]

Here's the Google Street View if you want to take a closer look

http://www.google.com/maps?q=washin...97875,-8.475309&panoid=AdZ7_nGIHrz_D2p7QDBXzQ

 

[MrX]

Oops Try this one

Sorry for some reason that street view didn't work.

Try this link instead!

http://www.google.com/maps?q=washin...7875,-8.475309&panoid=AdZ7_nGIHrz_D2p7QDBXzQ&

 

[MrX]

You may have to zoom in to max zoom on the map to see it (don't click or move the focal point)

 

[launderess]

It Is Worth Pointing Out

That at one time the Singer Company was the "Apple Computer" company of it's day making the family quite wealthy. The Singer family includes some colourful and or infamous members including a lesbian daughter that married into French nobility (a "white" marrige as her husband was gay and the whole thing was arranged for show), along with all that comes from having that much wealth.

Singer Company's North American headquarters was a beautiful "skyscraper" (one of the first buildings to be deemed such) located in lower Manhattan on what is now called Liberty Plaxa. Built in 1908 it was torn down in 1968 much to the dismay of many.

It also cannot be understated the wealth created from the invention of the sewing machine and how it changed lives all over the world.

Prior to the mechanical sewing machine coming along all clothing was stitched by hand. That and or one was literally sewn into a garment/fastened together via pins or what not. This meant only the very wealthy had any wardrobes of any size especially of outer garments because they could employ person or persons to run things up. Everyone else had to make do with one or two things they wore until it became rags, or cobbled together hand-me-downs, saved up to have something made (usually even then for special events like marriage), and so forth. If you ever get a chance to examine "older" garments you'd likely see they were altered (let in , let out, etc..) many times.

As with most everything else that went on "inside" the home it usually fell to females to handle the sewing and or mending of a families garments. Considering everything else they had to do there often just wasn't enough hours in the day.

Be they operated by hand, treadle or later electric power the domestic sewing machine literally changed the world. In the commercial area it meant clothing now could be mass produced (often in those ghastly sweat shops like the Triangle Shirtwaist Company), and while often still expensive it was cheaper than having everything done by hand.

Today of course those with funds pay dearly for totally and or mainly stitched by hand garments. French "haute couture" can run into the thousands for a simple skirt suit to hundreds of thousands for a gown.

A sewing machine and being skilled with it's use also was a means of financial independence especially for women when few other chances were open.

Time was a widow or other woman in reduced circumstances would be given a mangle/take in washing, but a sewing machine and setting one's self up as a dressmaker/seamstress could provide a decent living.

Small portable machines like the Singer Featherweight allowed a seamstress to travel and set up shop in a customer's home. You might be hired for a few days to run up/mend a household's linen (bed, table, etc..), or do alterations/mending of garments especially for the children.

Finally speaking of children it was because of the sewing machine and the ability to produce clothing quickly and or inexpensively (compared to hand sewing) that the custom of putting young boys into dresses until they were "breeched" gradually came to an end.

Due to the high cost of clothing and the sadly often equally high rate of infant/child mortality most all garments for the nursery were unisex, that is dresses. It simply was deemed to expensive in both time and funds to purchase/make clothing for boys or girls when you didn't now how long the child would live. Also dresses are easier to alter (let out, take in, raise or lower hems) than pants so things could be reused for subsequent children/babies or passed on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnaretta_Singer

 

[athanasius80]

Well with at least 20 kids, there's bound to be some entertaining exploits. Winnaretta Singer married nobility twice. The second one seems to have been a loving, albeit not erotic relationship. And her brother Paris Singer had a child with Isadora Duncan.

They got around.

 

[tolivac]

Large paper patterns-you could use wrapping paper-or when Newspapers were a DECENT size-not the wimpy size things you see now-you could get a "tail" roll of newsprint to make patterns or drawings on-worked great in woodshop class.And the paper made a makeshift projection screen!The tail rools at that time were like 6 ft wide.They are much smaller now-not as useful.