I quilt with a lot of non-native North Carolinians. I took stock of this a few years ago. Granted the Network Needlers group I meet with once-a-month hail from all parts of the United States and other countries. I am the sole North Carolina girl among them. As far as my local High Point Quilt goes? Probably 14 out of 35 members were born in the Old North State. In my Tuesday night Zoom and Sew, I’m in the minority. Only four of us have North Carolina on our birth certificates.
Everybody else is from “up North” – which in my world can range from Ohio to Michigan. My BFF Janet hails from Indiana. My other BFF Susan is from West Virginia. All great folks. And the one thing they definitely do better than I do is drive in the snow. North Carolina rarely has snow, and when we do, it is such a typical southern cliché – everything shuts down (even if it’s only a dusting) and there’s a mad dash to the Teeter or the Pig for milk, bread, coffee, and wine.
But I do love a good snow. Not so much one that shuts everything down for days or threatens my electrical current, but I love the peace and quiet it brings, blanketing our world in an icy insulation of peace. It lands softly and unpretentiously, unlike a noisy thunderstorm which announces its arrival from miles away.
There’s a Christmas carol called Winter Song written by Chris Tomlin:
You could’ve come like a mighty storm With all the strength of a hurricane You could’ve come like a forest fire With the power of heaven in Your flame
But You came like a winter snow Quiet and soft and slow Falling from the sky in the night To the Earth below
Oh, You could’ve swept in like a tidal wave Or a big ocean to ravish our hearts You could have come through like a roaring flood To wipe away the things that we’ve scarred
Oh, but He came like a winter snow So quiet, so soft, so slow Falling from the sky in the night To the Earth below, oh-oh, oh-oh
Ooh, no, Your voice wasn’t in a bush burning No, Your voice wasn’t in a rushing wind It was still, so small It was hidden, ooh
You came like a winter snow So quiet, so soft, so slow Falling from the sky in the night To the Earth below, ooh, oh You came falling From the sky in the night
The Christ-child’s arrival took many by quiet surprise. Instead of being born in a palace, He was born in a manger, an unlikely place, in a humble dwelling outside of Bethlehem. Instead of sweeping in like a new, future king, attended by government and palace officials, He was welcomed by shepherds and sheep, cows and goats, attended by a young, inexperienced mother and a somewhat bewildered but loving earthly father. Instead of having unlimited palatial wealth, his parents could only afford the cheapest sacrifice (two birds) when they presented Him at the temple.
It was the prophet Isaiah who foretold Jesus coming in this manner. Isaiah prophesied the coming Savior would “not shout or cry out” nor would He come in power like a hurricane or raging fire. Instead Jesus came gently in order to draw us to Himself with His offer of Peace – a peace still available to anyone who believes the story of a Savior born in a manger, who announced His arrival with a baby’s cry, made salvation available when He declared “It is finished!” and sealed our eternal life when an angel announced, “He is risen.”
Here’s the scene. Technically this is almost my last blog for 2024, but I’m writing it on November 14. The holidays are upon me and all the responsibilities they entail. Since November is also my birthday month, this is the time of year I spend a lot of time with my wonderful family and friends. I like to finish up my yearly blogging (except for the last round of editing before I hit the publish button) so I can enjoy my time with them as well as allow myself to take a break from writing. This lets me come back creatively strong in the New Year. The last few blogs of the year are usually somewhat reflective, somewhat encouraging, and can edge on the side of technical if I allow it.
They’re usually not written under the influence of drugs. Allow me to explain.
I’m rarely sick. Ever. Even if I do catch a cold or anything slightly worse, if I can allow myself a day in bed, generally I’m good. Even my fibromyalgia is a lot milder than some folks I know who have it. But this week was different. I’m not sure it’s because I am getting older or my body has decided to make up for lost time, but last week, I began to have a few issues. On Friday I woke up with a sinus headache. I got up, got dressed, ate breakfast, took some Sudafed, and galivanted off to Janet’s for our weekly Grilled Cheese and Wine Club meeting. By Friday night, I felt worse, but no fever. Saturday was no better. I took a Covid test just to be safe, and it yielded strong negative results. By Monday morning I was short of breath and felt so poorly I let Bill drive me to the doctor. The diagnosis was bronchitis, a sinus infection, and asthma.
Bummer. Was my childhood asthma making a repeat appearance? The doctor wasn’t sure, but it does happen with some former asthma patients as they get older. I’m prescribed Amoxicillin, Prednisone, and an Albuterol inhaler. I slept the remainder of Monday away, determined by Tuesday to be back to normal.
No dice. I knew enough about myself to know I probably wouldn’t make it to Guild Meeting on Thursday. Sure enough, by Wednesday evening I still didn’t feel right and found myself back in the doctor’s office for chest x-rays and another doctor’s appointment Thursday afternoon. This new diagnosis included two strains of pneumonia and I’m now on so many drugs I had to make a chart to make sure I took the right ones at the right time. Currently I have eight medications I’m responsible for taking at different intervals. Some with food. Some without. And I had to buy a nebulizer for albuterol breathing treatments.
Thus this 2024 blog is written under the influence of drugs. I’m feeling a bit woozy and still am coughing at times. Therefore, I’m taking the easy way out of this last blog. I’ve collected some questions my readers have sent me this year and will proceed to answer them (under the influence of said drugs). I just hope this whole thing makes sense.
Question One: You have probably said a thousand times “There are no hard rules in quilting.” If you had to make one absolute quilting rule, what would it be?
Have fun.
Yup. That’s it. And I know at this point a good number of you may be rolling your eyes. But hear me out. Yes, there are some important guidelines in quilting. However, none of them are do-or-die-if-you-don’t-follow-this-you’re-quilt-is-ruined rules. But I do believe that each and every time you sit down to work on a quilt, you should have fun. It should be something you look forward to and not something you dread. It should delight your soul and relax your mind. Otherwise, you don’t want to quilt or be a quilter. And life is just too short for that.
With that said, let me also add, the whole “Keep a consistent ¼-inch seam allowance” actually is pretty darned important. May want to keep that guideline front and center.
Question Two: Do you have a quilting pet peeve? And if you do, what is it?
Yes, I do: Inaccurate patterns, incomplete patterns, and poorly written patterns. There are two types of quilters. There are those who rely on a pattern the same way I rely on my recipe for Angel Food Cake – as long as I follow the recipe, my cake turns out great. But deviate the slightest bit from it – miscount the egg whites or don’t add the Cream of Tartar – and I have a hot mess. These quilters follow the patterns to the letter. They trust the instructions to allow them to make a great quilt.
Then there are those quilters for whom the pattern is the starting point… the suggestion. They quilt the same way I make spaghetti sauce – I throw in what I have and alter and season it to suit my taste at the moment. The recipe is a jumping off spot only. For quilters who are like this, it’s a bit easier for them to take an incomplete, inaccurate, or poorly written pattern and make some sense out of it. But for quilters who religiously follow the directions, a poorly written pattern can be the death knell of a quilt or possibly their hobby (see Question One).
There are a couple of ways to avoid bad patterns. First, if you know other quilters, ask them what their favorite quilt patterns are or who is their favorite quilt designer. Along with this answer will usually come some key information – such as this person writes really good quilt patterns. If you don’t know other quilters, Google the pattern. This information will give you lots of answers. Read the reviews about the patterns — both good and bad. See if you can work with the bad. But the kiss of death my quilting friends is this: If no one but the designer has made the quilt, put the pattern down, and run. This means either the designer or the pattern is so new that no one else except the designer has made the quilt or the pattern is so poorly written, incomplete, or inaccurate no one else wants to make the quilt.
Question Three: What’s Your Favorite Thing About Quilting?
Quilters. Hands down, no punches pulled, it’s the people. I met and talked with quilters several years before I started quilting. It was the quilters who led me down the beginning of my quilting journey, not quilts. I interviewed several in conjunction with a research project I worked on and decided I still wanted to have a relationship with these marvelous women. The easiest way to do so was to have them teach me to quilt. Nearly forty years later, I’m still quilting, and I still love quilters.
Next to quilters, it would have to be all the colors – but not necessarily the fabrics. I tend to fall hard for certain color schematics, and then seek out the appropriate fabrics, not the other way around. The pictures of quilts I’ve saved on my phone are not necessarily because I particularly like the pattern, but because I like the colors. This is one I am particularly interested in:
I’m not sure why, I just think it kind of makes my heart remember Christmases past.
I wonder if the reason I am attracted first to color and then search for fabric is due to the fact I’m primarily an applique quilter? More often than not I look at a piece of fabric and consider if it could be used for vines or leaves or the part of a flower petal the sunlight drapes itself over. My stash is even organized differently. Yes, I have focus fabrics and blenders sorted by color, but the rest tends to be categorized by texture.
Question Four: Big or Small Blocks?
Totally depends on the quilt and the technique. I’m not a super fan of heavily pieced blocks (but then again, I am that quilter who sewed 72 pieces in a 6-inch block, so I have that going for me). If there are a lot of pieces involved, I prefer the block to be a larger one. For instance, Bonnie Hunters new pattern Moonflower is lovely, and I adore it. The best thing for me is the block size. The blocks have lots of pieces, but they are large. I think I’ll have a great time making this quilt. If the pieced block is small (anything 6-inches or less) I prefer fewer pieces or have a paper pieced pattern to go by.
With applique, I don’t mind so much about the block sizes or number of pieces. Applique is one of the most forgiving quilting techniques out there. It’s really kind of fun to challenge yourself to see how small you can get.
Question Five: How Long Have You Quilted?
I made my first quilt when I was pregnant with my daughter and my second quilt when I was expecting my son – and those kids are three years apart in age. After they were born, I made their clothes and my own for a number of years until they began growing too fast for me to keep up with. So somewhere around 1995, I turned to quilting as a hobby and by 2000 I was seriously making quilts as well as researching them. So in total, I’ve quilted nearly forty years, with almost 25 of those years of sewing exclusively quilts.
Question Six: Do You Make Quilts Exclusively Now?
For the most part, yes. Occasionally I will dally with the other sewing arts, but primarily quilts are my heart-song. But I do have this super-cute gnome kit on my ironing board that just happened to arrive in the mail….
Question Seven: Any Chances Your Blogs Will Turn Into a Book?
I get asked this question a lot. And I would absolutely love to write a how-to-quilt book for beginners and another one covering the esoteric quilt topics not covered in other quilt how-to books.
So what’s holding me back? First, time. I still work full time at my “other” job, am actively involved in a couple of guilds and The Applique Society, have an aging parent, etc., etc. – a lot of the same things many quilters my age deal with. Once I retire, I hope the “time” issue readjusts itself and I have the book possibility in front of me.
Second, book publishing has changed a great deal. Many of the responsibilities (such as photography and graphics) fall squarely on the shoulders of the writers. And there is no guarantee you’ll even break even with your contract. So if I do ever publish, I will self-publish.
Question Eight: What’s On Your Cutting Table and Under Your Needle?
Currently, I’m putting in the last stitches of the third T-shirt quilt I’m making for my Aunt and her family. I am prepping the raw-edge applique borders for The Colors of Spring. I’m sewing the two pieces of my Grandmother’s Flower Garden together, so the center will be complete and I can begin drafting the borders. And I’m hand appliqueing Birds in the Garden.
Blooming Bouquet is on my cutting table. This quilt uses Jodi Barrow’s Square-in-a-Square technique and I began the kit at quilt retreat. I can’t wait to re-start this one.
Question Nine: Any Ideas of What’s Coming in 2025?
Nothing firm yet, but keep a sharp eye out for the first couple of January blogs. Some good decisions need to be made. I just need to make sure I make the right ones.
Question Ten: I heard you say that each quilt you make is unique and should be approached in the way which best suits the construction method chosen. Is there one thing you do consistently with all quilts, regardless of the type? And if there is, what is it?
Yes, there is one thing I do across the board with all my quilts: I starch my fabric. Regardless of if I’ve pre-washed the fabric or not, each piece of fabric gets starched with regular spray starch (although I do not starch my applique fabric as heavily as I do the fabric I piece with). I find this extra bit of stiffness in the fabric helps with my cutting accuracy. And if I have any bias cutting to do, I starch the fabric until it feels like paper, so I know the bias is stabilized.
How you starch is just as important as the starch itself. Instead of soaking the fabric with starch, I find it more effective to lightly spray the wrong side of the fabric, press the starch in, and repeat if necessary.
Some other things you may be interested in:
I’m an avid reader. Currently I am reading through Romans as part of a Bible study. I am also reading Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear and listening on Audible to Eleanor Roosevelt: The War Years and After by Blanch Wiesen Cook.
I also knit and crochet.
This year has quickly come to an end. I hope you’ve enjoyed our trip around the sun together and I’m looking forward to sharing with you even more next year.
When we began 2024, my theme for the year was “From my studio to yours.” This phrase implied I wanted to share with you tips and tricks I’ve learned throughout my quilting years. Some of these tips I shared before and had updated the process. Others were new.
However, I feel in many ways, I haven’t exactly lived up to the theme – at least not 100 percent of the time. In many ways 2024 was different from other years. Those of you who have consistently read my blogs know I’ve dealt with some difficult issues. My mom’s health. My daughter’s cervical cancer. My brother’s Multiple Myeloma diagnosis. Thankfully all three of those wonderful folks are doing well now. The doctors (finally) got to the bottom of where mom was bleeding and fixed it. Her hemoglobin and iron levels are really good nowadays. My daughter’s surgery was as perfect as it could be. Her margins were clear and now at the six-year mark, she remains cancer free. My brother had a successful stem cell transplant and is doing well.
All in all, I have so very much to be thankful for. However, December 2023 was not kind to us. Amid the Christmas trees and gift shopping, I had a cousin who was hospitalized. His name was Kemp. Kemp, like too many members of my family, had cancer. Follicular Lymphoma. He was diagnosed sometime in 2017 or 2018. This wasn’t a curable cancer, but it was treatable. However, he developed Covid Pneumonia in the fall of 2023. Whether his body was too weakened by the new cancer treatments he had just started, or the illness was just particularly severe, he passed away December 8 from complications of Covid Pneumonia.
Kemp H. Coble
I know it’s common for people to be remembered as “The life of a party,” or “He/She lit up a room as soon as they walked in it.” Since there was a bit of age difference between us, we never partied together, but I can say Kemp – he was the cousin you sought out at a family reunion. He was fun and he was positive. He didn’t let his cancer diagnosis get him down. He continued to work full time, take care of his three fur children (rescue dogs), and work on his house. He took care of his mother. And he was probably the closest thing to a brother that my brother had. When Eric and Kemp were young, they stayed at each other’s homes for part of the summer (Kemp lived in South Carolina and Eric here in North Carolina). The boys grew apart, but reconnected when Kemp moved to North Carolina for work. After this, they kept in close contact. When Kemp was diagnosed, Eric was one of his support systems. When I learned of Eric’s Multiple Myeloma diagnosis, Kemp was the first person I called, knowing he could tell me how best to support Eric.
The funeral was surreal. Eric gave the eulogy. Kemp’s father spoke and so did his sister.
So many people, so many good things were said.
We miss him so much.
My paternal aunt (Kemp’s mother) is my dad’s baby sister. And if I were honest, she is my favorite. Normally upbeat and quick to laugh and smile, burying her son almost killed her. I think it would have if she didn’t have the blessed assurance Kemp really is in a better place. It was difficult to watch her (even if it was from my cell phone back in North Carolina) sort through Kemp’s things. Finish the house repairs he was in the middle of when he died. Sell his household goods and truck…and then his house. Funny how life continues, and the world still spins even when we’re falling apart.
You feel helpless to help. There’s really nothing you can do or say to ease any of the hurt. Since I’m not local to them, I couldn’t help paint or clean. But what I could do, like most quilters, was make a quilt. Or three. Kemp was a Harley person. He owned and rode one. And at many of the Harley shops and events he went to, he’d buy a T-shirt. He had a closet full. So I asked my aunt, my cousin, and my uncle to pick out between 10 and 12 T-shirts each. Put them in separate bags and label each bag with their names. I promised quilts. While on a visit to check on our aunt, Eric picked up the T-shirts and delivered them to me in April 2024. And the work began.
Example of a T-Shirt Quilt
I’ve made T-shirt quilts. Several, as a matter of fact. While they’re not my favorite type of quilt to make, I do enjoy the construction process. However, the quilting is a bit difficult. Layla the Long Arm doesn’t like the bulk. But it’s always fun to remember the story behind each shirt and I’m always glad that these memories are showcased in something everyone could see and could be kept at the owner’s fingertips.
But these T-shirt quilts were different. These aren’t so much T-shirt quilts as they are memory quilts. Remembrance quilts. I let those bags of shirts sit in my quilt studio a couple of weeks before I could even look at them. Finally I took a deep breath, opened the first bag I grabbed (which happened to be my uncle’s), and pulled out the shirts, only to immediately stuff them back in the bag. I couldn’t touch them. The feelings were too raw. Finally after giving myself a stern talking to (and maybe a glass of wine), I pulled the T-shirts back out and began to “debone” them.
“Deboning” a T-shirt simply means cutting up the sides of the shirt, removing the sleeves, and the crew neck collar. When you’re finished, you have the front and back of the shirt. I was lucky with Kemp’s. Some of his Harley shirts had workable graphics on the front and the back. Then you decide how much of the shirt to use and begin to rotary cut the area into workable blocks and stabilize them (it’s important to stabilize the T-shirts so the knit fabric plays nicely with the quilting cottons). After that, I design the quilt and begin construction. Not one of the three quilts I made looks exactly like the other two.
And all of this sounds very normal to a quilter. Nothing would set off alarm bells. Most T-shirt quilt construction is pretty easy – even for a beginner. But allow me to tell you something about making a T-shirt quilt for someone you loved who has passed: You see everything. I can tell you which shirts he wore the most. Those had tiny holes – some of which Kemp mended by hand with needle and thread. I can tell you which one he wore the least – the thermal one with long sleeves. It looked like it came right off the hanger in the store. Those T-shirts became something so much more than quilt blocks as I worked on these quilts. I knew where he traveled. I knew he liked short sleeved T-shirts more than long sleeved ones. He preferred larger graphic T’s.
Quilting, for the most part, is a solitary hobby. However, early on I quickly learned I worked better with these quilts on Tuesday nights. Tuesday nights are my Zoom and Sew nights with some quilters I’ve quilted with since around 2010. They keep me laughing and somewhere between the laughter and talk, I managed to debone 45 Harley shirts, stabilize them, and design three quilts without losing my mind. I’ve learned there are fabrics other than batiks which work really well with T-shirt quilts. When I discovered to never work on them without at least having a movie playing on my iPad, I garnered a list of movies I needed to watch during my lifetime. My sewing buddies supplied that, too. Too much silence meant thinking about the reason behind these quilts too much. Distraction – at least as much as I could muster – was my friend.
And now the construction part is complete. I put the last stitch in the last quilt today (as far as the tops go). I’m giving myself a mental vacation until after Christmas. Then I’ll load them, one at a time, on my long arm and do an edge-to-edge meander. I’ll bind them, make sure the labels are attached and either mail them or deliver them in person.
Since April, these quilts have been my life. Aside from the time spent at my Fall Quilt Retreat on other projects and the handwork I do when I watch TV, I’ve worked on Kemp’s T-shirt quilts almost every time I was in my studio. It’s kind of ironic in a way. When Kemp was first diagnosed with Follicular Lymphoma, I made him a quilt to take to the chemo treatments. Often these rooms are chilly, and it’s helpful to have something to cover up with. Being a quilter, I knew he had to have a quilt. To honor his time in the National Guard, I made the quilt from red, white, and blue fabrics and mailed it off.
I knew he would appreciate it, but had no idea how much. He called me and thanked me profusely for it. And every time I saw him, he mentioned how much he loved that quilt. We even discussed a quilt he wanted me to make for his bedroom. We had plans to go look at fabric the next time he was in North Carolina. I feel that instead of one quilt for his bedroom, I’ve now made three for him to honor his life.
As far as any quilting tips I could offer you from this experience, I can offer two. First, make sure your T-shirts are well stabilized. Second, make sure the quilting cottons used are firmly woven. As for other tips, be sure to love the folks around you while you’ve got them and don’t take for granted the life they led.
My aunt now has his red, white, and blue quilt. It’s my hope the three quilts which will be winding their way to South Carolina in a few months will bring comfort, preserve memories, and warm them like a hug from Kemp.
Until Next Week, From My Studio to Yours,
Love and Stitches,
Sherri and Felix
PS I will share pictures of the quilts as soon as they’re complete and in the hands of my aunt, uncle, and cousin.
As promised a few blogs ago, today we’re covering the Singer Sewing Machine Company, their bankruptcy, and where they’re at today. Why Singer? Why spend about 2,000 words on one sewing machine company?
Well, Singer is one of the cornerstones of our sewing history. This was the company, when the right minds came together, developed a domestic sewing machine which was both affordable and durable. This was the machine which, to a large part, took the burden of hand sewing everything – from underwear to curtains – off the backs of hundreds of women. This is the machine which was also made affordable for entrepreneurs who had a vision of reasonably priced, ready-made clothing for the masses. And yes, while Singer wasn’t the only sewing machine available for use, it certainly was the bestseller and the best known.
In the Beginning….There Was a Patent Pool…and the Pool Produced a Workable Sewing Machine
The domestic sewing machine as we know it, came together through a series of shared patents called a “patent pool.” Issac Merrit Singer wasn’t the first “inventor” (I’m using that term loosely with him – he was more of a borrower of ideas) who wanted to develop a domestic sewing machine. Elias Howe had spent nine years improving his patent on a domestic sewing machine and suing Singer every time the man tried to “borrow” one of his ideas. Eventually a lawyer named Orlando Potter (who was president of yet another sewing machine company) hashed out all the best ideas for a sewing machine and talked the inventors into basically a “group patent” for those. The results led to a patent for a wonderful domestic sewing machine with no threats of lawsuits.
First Singer Sewing Machine
There were nine patents split between four stakeholders: Elias Howe, Issac Singer, and Wheeler and Watson Manufacturing. Of those four, I bet the only name recognized by most of you is Isaac Singer. How did that happen? There were lots of reasons, but the first one is the company kicked Isaac Singer to the curb. Singer’s lawyer, Edward C. Clark, realized pretty quickly that due to Mr. Singer’s reputation (probable bigamist, stealer of ideas, all-around questionable business dealings) could possibly drag the company down. So through a series of board room maneuverings, Isaac Singer was removed as president, Edward Clark was installed as president, and the company’s name was changed from I.M. Singer & Co. to Singer Manufacturing Company.
Edward Clark
From there, Clark implemented monthly installment payments, rent-to-own payment contracts, large showrooms for women to come in and try out the machines, door-to- door salesmen, and lots of flashy promotional material. Sales soared, and by 1860 Singer was the largest sewing machine manufacturer in the world. In 1863, Singer had its first large factory for mass production built in Elizabeth, New Jersey, followed by a factory in Glasgow in 1867 and a larger factory in Kilbowie, Scotland in 1885. Those of us who have a Singer Featherweight 222 know our machines were produced in the Kilbowie factory. The factory also produced the first “vibrating shuttle” sewing machine, which was an improvement over the transverse shuttle design.
“Vibrating” Shuttle
However, even prior to the construction of the Kilbowie and Glasgow factories, Singer was marketing itself on an international basis. By 1855 Singer was an internationally known brand name and won first prize at the World’s Fair in Paris that same year. By 1910, the company had it’s first workable electric sewing machine and began promoting the installment plans which allowed nearly every household to afford a domestic sewing machine. These payment plans allowed Singer to go from selling 810 sewing machines in 1853 to selling 262,316 sewing machines in 1876. Cumulatively by the end of 1876, Singer had sold over two million sewing machines.
First Singer Electric Sewing Machine
Why Manufacture Such a Recognized American Product in Scotland?
The answer to this question (as it is with a lot of questions) is money. And demand for the machines comes in a close second. By 1867, enough folks in the United Kingdom wanted a Singer Sewing Machine that the company Vice President, George Ross McKenzie, selected Glasgow as the first overseas manufacturing site. This decision was due to Glasgow’s iron making industries, cheap labor, and shipping capabilities. This worked so well that in 1873, a new, larger factory was completed on James Street in Brigeton. By that time, Singer employed over 2,000 people in Scotland, but they still could not produce enough machines. It was then decided to build the Kilbowie factory in Clydebank, Scotland. This factory had a 46-acre campus, to allow for plenty of growth. Two main buildings were constructed, 800 feet x 50 feet, and each was three stories high. The buildings were connected by three wings. Nearly three miles of railways lines were laid throughout the campus to connect the different departments and connect the factory to the main railway stations. Ahead of its time, the factory was also fireproofed with water sprinklers, making it the most modern factory in Europe.
Kilbowie Singer Factory
This allowed the Singer Company to occupy a footprint of nearly a million square feet and employ 7,000 people. With this space and worker capacity, the factory produced an average of 13,000 sewing machines a week. Singer was now the largest sewing machine factory in the world. The Kilbowie factory was so productive that in 1905, the US Singer Company set up and registered the Singer Manufacturing Company, LTD in the United Kingdom.
Still, even with the factory churning out an average of 13,000 sewing machines a week, the demand grew. The buildings were expanded to six stories. The railways expanded to have a Singer Sewing Machine Station in 1907 with connections to adjoining towns and central Glasgow to assist in transporting the workforce from Glasgow to Kilbowie. “Scientific Management” techniques were implemented which increased the workload while keeping salary overheads low.
However, as rosy as a picture as all this expansion paints, all was not well at Singer. In 1911 the company hit its first road bump: A walkout and strike of 10,000 workers. Known as the Singer Strike, the walkout took place in support of twelve women polishers who had seen three staff dismissed, but their workload remained the same. It was significant in its recognition of the rights of women workers and the need for collective bargaining. The strike pre-dated the labor movement known as “Red Clydeside.”
Before the World Wars
The Singer Sewing Machine Company was the first complex standardized technology to be mass marketed. The marketing emphasized the role of women and their relationship to the home, evoking ideals of virtue, modesty, and diligence. The presence of a sewing machine in a home freed the woman from the tediousness of hand sewing everything, but the machine emphasized the woman sewing for her family and household – not for anyone else – thus accentuating every household needed a Singer Sewing Machine. Meanwhile, tradespeople who made their living in the garment sewing industry suffered. Their wages were already poor and got poorer still as women and their families began to rely on sewing machines to make all the needed garments – from formal dress to everyday wear. And certainly Singer’s credit purchases and rent-to-own arrangements made it possible for any household who wanted a sewing machine to have one. One of the reasons Singer’s sale numbers increased so rapidly was because of the rent-to-own and credit purchases were used globally, not just in the United States.
World War I
On July 28, 1914, World War I began, although Europe would not see the United States enter the war until April 1915. The Singer Manufacturing Company in Clydebank switched from producing sewing machines to munitions. At first glance, this seems like a real stretch – moving from making sewing machines to artillery shells – but if you really think about it, it’s not. Producing a sewing machine requires machinery with extreme precision and employees who are skilled at those machines. Singer’s precision machinery and skilled employees received over 5,000 government contracts during World War I and made 303 million artillery shells, shell components, fuses, airplane parts, grenades, rifle parts and 361,000 horseshoes. By the end of World War I, Singer had a workforce of 14,000 employees, and 70% of those were female.
World War II
During World War II, just as Singer did in World War I, the factories suspended production of sewing machines in order to take on government contracts for manufacturing weapons. Factories in the United States supplied American forces with Norden bomb sites and M1 Carbine Rifle receivers.
In 1939, the company was given a production study by the government to draw plans and develop standard raw material sizes for building M1911A1 pistols. The government asked Singer to produce 500 units of these pistols, but it was difficult. They were unable to produce the contracted 100 units per day as requested, but the government was so impressed with the quality of the pistols, they requested Singer also produce navigation and targeting equipment components. Of the approximately 1.75 million pistols produced during World War II, only 500 were produced by Singer, making them a rare and valuable find (the rest of the pistols were produced by Remington Rand and the Ithaca Gun Company).
Singer Pistol
Other World War II government contracts for Singer included the M5 Antiaircraft Director and the Bofors 40 mm gun.
After the Wars, Singer Wasn’t the Same
In 1946, after World War II ended, Singer went back to making sewing machines, coming up with one of their most popular, highest-quality, and fully optioned machines in 1957, the 401 Slant-O-Matic.
401 Slant-O-Matic
Featherweights also continued to be sold at a fairly brisk clip, and it seemed as if everything was back to normal in the sewing machine world.
Except it wasn’t. Society and women didn’t exactly go back to fitting into those neat, stereotypical boxes prior to World War II. For many women, the war offered them opportunities they had never had – the chance to work outside the home, the chance to make their own money, and the chance to be something other than a housewife or mother. Many of these women continued to do so after the war ended and had less and less time for sewing. Sewing machine sales – across the board, not just with Singer – plummeted as women had less and less time for sewing and crafting. To try to regain some popularity among the younger crowd, Singer began sponsoring rock and roll concerts (Paul Butterfield and the Blues Band, Seatrain, Procol Harum, The Incredible String Band, Mother Earth, Delaney and Bonnie and Friends) and produced a line of Singer record players.
And in 1968, Singer pulled out all the stops and sponsored Elvis Presley’s ’68 Comeback Special.
Yeah, this guy needs no caption….
By 1965 diversification had become the life blood to Singer’s bottom line. Sewing machine sales continued to plummet. So in 1965, Singer acquired the Friden Calculator Company and then the General Precision Equipment Company in 1968. Friden became Singer Business Machines which produced the Singer System 10. General Precision Equipment Company included Librascope, the Kearfott Company, and Link Flight Simulation. In 1968 Singer bought out GPS Systems and added to Link Flight Simulation in order to have Link Simulations Systems Division. This Division produced nuclear power plant control room simulators in Silver Springs, Maryland; Tech Road building for Boiling Water Reactor; and the Parkway Building for Pressurized Water Reactor. These new divisions had factories from Binghamton, New York to Columbia Maryland.
With their bottom line still lagging, in 1971 Singer delved into producing portable home audio and visual equipment. To this day, you can find some of the Singer brand record and cassette players and film-strip viewers on eBay.
They also set up a national sales force for CAT phototypesetting machines via Graphic Systems Inc., until it was purchased by Want Laboratories in 1978.
As sewing machine sales (and quality) continued to bottom out, and the diversification just not working the way Singer hoped, the stage was set. In 1987, corporate raider Paul Bilzerian made a run at Singer. When no last-minute Singer shareholder or other rescuer appeared, it was over. Bilzerian purchased Singer and immediately began selling its parts off to re-coup his money. Kearfott was split and sold to Astronautics Corporation of America and Plessey Company. The four Link divisions were sold to Canadian Avionics Electronics. The nuclear power simulators became S3 Technologies (later GSE Systems). Then in 1989, the sewing machine division was sold to Semi-Tech Microelectronics.
In retrospect, Singer’s sales and profits grew until the 1940’s. Then the market was affected several ways. Women weren’t sewing as much. European and Japanese manufacturers ate into the market with zigzag sewing machines. Then Singer diversified too much. Roughly 90 percent of Singer’s revenue was from sewing machines before diversification. After diversification, this was reduced to 35 percent.
What Now?
Sit tight and get ready to pivot. What happened after 1989 is a blur.
Before 1978, Singer had its headquarters in Rockefeller Plaza. After 1978, it moved to Stamford, Connecticut and only had 430 employees.
In 1986, to compete with the Japanese and European brands such as Bernina, Pfaff, and Viking, it purchased Dalmo Victor. It then sold Dalmo to General Instrument in 1989 for $175 million in cash.
In 1986, Singer announced the original Singer Sewing Machine Company would be spun off under the name of SSMC, LTD. In 1989, SSMC was purchased by Semi-Tech Global along with all the rights to the Singer name. SSMC was renamed once more, back to the original Singer, and then to Singer NV and became based in the Netherlands and owned by a Hong Kong holding company. The original Singer Corporation was renamed Bicoastal Corporation.
In 1999, Singer NV declared bankruptcy and was purchased by Kohlberg and Company and moved operations to LaVergne, Tennessee. This location serves as the wholesale distribution point for parts and sewing machines. In 2006, Kohlberg also acquired Husqvarna and Pfaff. Now Singer, Husqvarna, and Pfaff are all family, and they compete with Baby Lock, Bernina, Brother, Janome and Aisin Seiki
Whew.
The Follow Up and the Fall Out
When the Singer Corporation was new, they occupied a 47-story building in Rockefeller Plaza. It was completed in 1908 and was demolished in 1968 to make way for the One Liberty Plaza development. For years, it was the tallest building in the world and was the tallest building to be intentionally demolished until the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in the September 11 attacks.
Singer was heavily involved in Manhattan real estate from the 1800’s through Edward Clark – the second president of Singer. Clark built the Dakota Apartments and a few other Manhattan buildings.
The famous Dakota Apartments where John Lennon and Lauren Bacall lived.
While the company was continuing to thrive in New York, Clark had Ernest Flagg to build a 12-story loft building at Broadway and Prince Streets in Lower Manhattan. The building is now considered architecturally notable and has been restored.
In Scotland, from its opening in 1884 until its closing in 1943, the Kilbowie factory produced approximately 36,000,000 sewing machines. However, the 1950’s and 1960’s saw a period of significant change. In 1958, Singer reduced production at their main American plant and transferred 40 percent of this production to Kilbowie in a bid to reduce cost and boost the flagging bottom line. Between 1961 and 1964, the factory underwent a 4 million pound modernization which saw the factory cease the production of cast iron machines and focus on the production of aluminum machines for western markets. Part of this modernization included the demo of the famous Singer clock.
At the height of its production in the mid-1960’s, Kilbowie employed over 16,000 workers, but by the end of the Sixties through 1973, the workforce was reduced to 5,000. Financial problems and lack of orders forced the world’s largest sewing machine factory to close in June 1980, bringing a sad end to over 100 years of sewing machine production in Scotland. The complex of buildings was demolished in 1998.
The Singer Railway Station in Scotland is the only lingering sign of what once was. It still stands and is one of only two railway stations in the United Kingdom named after a factory and remains in operation.
Singer House, St. Petersburg, Russia
The famous Singer House, built between 1902 and 1904 at Nevsky Prospekt in Saint Petersburg, Russia was the headquarters of the Russian branch of Singer. This modern style building has been officially recognized as an object of Russian historical-cultural heritage and at the time of this blog is still standing.
In 2017, Singer launched their new Singer Sewing Assistant App.
In 2018, a large factory fire destroyed a Singer distribution office and warehouse in Seven Hills, Sydney. Singer had manufactured sewing machines in Australia at a purpose-built plant in the western Sydney suburb of Penrith from 1959 – 1967.
As of October 31, 2024, the writing date of this blog, independent shops which sell sewing machines have mixed review of Singer machines, with most of those opinions trending downwards. Dan, from the Sewing Machine Shoppe in Walnut Creek California, put it like this:
There is a sense in which Singer, Pfaff, and Viking do not exist anymore– not as they once were. The Singer company that designed and manufactured iconic machines such as the 201, 301, and Featherweight– in 1999 that company was acquired by Kohlberg & Company, an American private equity firm that focuses on leveraged buyout transactions. In 2006, Kohlberg & Company also acquired Pfaff and Viking. From there, the three legendary sewing machine companies were merged into one: SVP Worldwide.Ever since the merger, SVP Worldwide has been bought and sold by two other private equity investment firms. As control of the companies repeatedly changed hands, their unique DNA– the reason we fell in love with their products in the first place– that unique DNA was lost. For example, Pfaff has stopped designing machines with their front-loading bobbin system. Modern Singer machines are less reliable than their 70 year-old featherweight ancestors. Viking is no longer the innovator they once were, and their modern machines are notorious for electronic issues. And, worst of all, SVP Worldwide doesn’t even make parts to support their older machines anymore. If your old Pfaff needs a part replaced, you have to hope that we have an old Pfaff in our Boneyard that we can harvest the part from. The same goes for Viking and Singer.
Try as I might, I could not get hard or soft numbers on how many Singer Sewing Machines were sold in 2023, so it’s difficult to examine just how badly the constant mergers and change of hand have affected their current bottom line – what little of it is left. I can leave you with my own reflections. When my home economic teachers were searching for sewing machines for us to use way back in the mid-to-late 1970’s, Singer was not on their list. Too many issues, too many problems. I think they finally chose White, if memory serves me correctly – which also had their share of problems. I blame those machines on my detestation of any sewing until the early 1980’s when I had access to a good sewing machine.
It hurts a little, to know that such a good product had such a sorry ending. For years, Singer not only eased women’s burdens, but also supplied jobs and incomes for countless families, not to mention the businesses which sprang up to support Singer and its employees. Nostalgia has a way of wistfully making you want to go back to a time when things were supposedly simpler and better. Every time I sit down behind my Featherweight I realize I hold a little history in my hands – the history of a machine which had its beginnings at the Kilbowie factory and somehow made its way to a quilter in Jamestown, North Carolina. A history which will probably not be repeated in anyone’s lifetime. Just goes to show – don’t take anything or anyone for granted. Tomorrow it could be sold, subsidized, taken over, or shut down.
Now excuse me while I go hug my Featherweight.
Until Next Week, From My Studio to Yours, Love and Stitches, Sherri and Felix
