Maggiemay

Mine was a Kenmore that my parents bought used & gave to me for Christmas when I was 20. It is in a cabinet & folds down. It has lots of stitches, no free arm & weighs a ton! I still love the overcast stitch & the buttonhole on it. I need to check it out, but I think it was made in the mid 60's. I still have it-just can't part with it, but haven't used it much lately & it needs to be serviced. I wish it had an odometer becuase I would love to know how many miles I sewed on that machine!

sharoney

Mine was a Singer, I was 16. My dad bought it for me. I used it til DH bought me a Viking in 1985, which was 15 years later. My Sis-IL now uses the Singer, and I still use the Viking.

pollyjvan9

I didn't OWN a sewing machine until after I got married at 20 yrs old, but I learned to sew on a 1940's treadle that had belonged to my grandmother. I started making doll clothes at about 5 I think. My daughter now has the treadle but she uses it as an end table!

tomilu

My mom had a Singer 306 that I sewed on while still at home. My first SM of my own happened to be a FW, back when they weren't anything special. I paid $50 for it in 1961 and sewed for 4 kids on it as a military wife with little money. I still have that machine, but it is so worn I just keep it for sentimental reasons and once in a while get it out.

sewTinker

mine is at my son's house. It's a Basic Model singer (the cheapest I could find) that I bought new when I was 20. I made lots of little dresses, and a couple of big ones for my daughter when she was growing up. Made my first couple of quilts on it, too; then my husband bought me my beautiful bernina. :-D

thepolyparrot

My grandparents taught me to sew when I was eight or nine years old - on my grandmother's relatively new Singer 401. They would often tell me, "This will be yours, someday." It was one of their possessions of which they were most proud.

My sister ended up with it and I bought another one a few years ago. I refurbished it and gave it an identical desk cabinet and all the accessories and notions that I can find that my grandmother had in her desk - wooden darning eggs, even a pair of Wiss pinking shears in the exact same box in which she kept hers. :)

I bought my own first machine when I was about 25 - it was from Fingerhut, because they had really low monthly payments. I don't remember what brand it was, but I think it was a Brother. A few years later, I got my mother's Singer Golden Touch & Sew 750 which had only about ten hours of sewing time on it. I still have that one, along with 23 or 24 others. :oops: That 401 turned me into a collector.

thepolyparrot

Those Kenmores from the 60's & 70's are tanks, aren't they? But, oh, gosh they sew beautifully!

Yours is probably perfectly suited for free-motion quilting - most of the Kenmores had vertical bobbins - some load on the left end and some load on the front, but either way, mine all do beautiful free-motion quilting/darning/embroidery. :)

Jim's Gem

A greeen metal Singer. (at least I think it is green) I was 8 or 9 and mom made me take a couple of sewing classes which I HATED!!!! Oh, I hated sewing!!! I think it is a 1950 something. I have that machine. It is in the garage in a box somewhere that has been moved with us every time we have moved but has not been opened and looked at in over 23 years (when I got my Pfaff 1147)

jlm5419

The first machine I sewed on was in Home Ec. at school, I was maybe 13 or 14. It was about that same time my mother got a White zigzag machine. This was mid-to-late 60s. I inherited that machine when she passed.

The first machine I owned myself was a Kenmore, bought new in the mid-to-late 70s. I still have that machine. It is a real workhorse. I sewed everything from my sons clothes to drapes to quilts on that machine. Still very fond of it, but have promised it to my younger son.

Terryl

Mine was a Husqvarna Viking, don't remember the model as I only had it a few months before I traded up, won't tell how old I was, will just say DGS was 4 months old when I got it, he just turned 8 years old. Wanted to learn to quilt after he was born. Now I seem to be a vintage machine collector :) :) :) Might add that in these 8 years, my machine was in storage for probably 4 years, so I consider myself an intermediate beginner as a quilter.