"Tom Farrell" wrote in message
om...
Pogonip wrote in message
...

You now have an excellent reason to pick up a slant-needle
zigzag Singer....I recommend the 401, but there are
several others that will do nicely.

Well, I can't say I wasn't warned that someone would try to talk me
into buying one. I don't know if I'd want to use it for anything other
than the monogrammer, which seems like it'd be a real waste, but it
might not be so bad to have a second working machine I could loan to
friends and students.

At the moment I'm unemployed, and laying out just a few bucks for
these attachments is a stretch for me. (If anyone needs a really
*great* web developer in the Boston area, email me.) Sometime when I'm
employed and have paid off some debt, I'll be able to think about
taking in an antique sewing machine. Meanwhile, I'm afraid I can't
even consider it.

Incidentally, can you shed any light on what's the *point* of the
slant needle machines? From an engineering perspective it would seem
like a bad idea to me...

Tom Farrell
http://www.SewingWithTom.com/

I can't think of a single good reason from an engineering point of view for
the slant needle. But Singer did not build its success on really great
machines--not that they didn't make some fine ones--but on marketing and
financing plans, wereby a woman could buy a sewing machine by setting aside
a few dollars a month from her 'butter and egg' money.

Nobody else had the "advanced" slant needle machine, which made it ever so
much easier to see ones work and sit it in a more natural position, rather
than hunched over those old-fashioned machines. Or so the advertising was
able to claim.

The great thing about Singers (and I do not own one) is that so very many
were made, an owner doesn't have to be concerned about finding parts or
attachments for the rest of her life.

Max