Tale of two Singers

I'm very much a Bernina person but I have two wonderful Singers. The big guy is a 1938 Singer 201-2 my Mom got when she combined a birthday, Christmas and graduation from Junior High in 1942. This was a very gently used machine and came in a very handsome Queen Anne style cabinet. It's still in the very handsome cabinet.  I'm happy to have it grace my upstairs hallway and I do bring it out when I want a very quiet wonderful straight stitch. Since this is the machine I learned to sew on I fell like I'm sewing with a good friend.

The Featherweight 221 dates to 1946 and came from a very good deal on Ebay. It's in pretty good shape (although the people who had it did not baby it as much as we did the 201-2) and I might at some point want to restore it to perfect. Not sure though. Thanks to Mike at the Quilt Patch in VA it runs beautifully!

One of the cool things is they both have the nice scrolly faceplate so they really look like siblings!

And they take the same attachments and feet! I just love the two machines when I feeling truly vintage!

Day Dress

This is the day dress I did for the Tim Gunn Sewalong on Patternreview.com. He suggests a day dress and when I got this fabric from Gorgeous Fabrics I knew that’s what it had to be! I think this fabric really has a Tommy Bahama feel to it.

It was the Bernina My Label basic dress pattern but, of course, I had to change some things. I put pockets on the front because I always wished dresses had pockets! Hey, I made it so I can do whatever I want with it! I put the slits in the front as opposed to the one in the back and added a placket neckline. I finally mastered doing plackets so now I want to use them more often!

Black dress pants for the Tim Gunn Sewalong

These are my completed black pants. I used the Bernina My Label flared pants but narrowed the leg. I also omitted the back pockets as I didn’t see any reason for them. The back is much smoother this way. I used a classic fly front and belt loops. The fabric was a black on black stripe silk suiting fabric I got in a Michael’s Fabric bundle a while back. This is how they look in the front:

 And this is the back:

Gotta love those My Label patterns!