Well, the year of sewing projects is off to a slow start; here it is, the end of January, and the only project that I have completed is a small quilted box, made from fabric scraps that I dyed and printed back when I was an art student thirty years ago.  It is pictured here on the left, along with the Singer 212 “Featherweight” sewing machine that it was made on.  Do you see that cute little “Project Runway” pincushion in the foreground?  Our friend Tossa deTrash gave it to me a few years ago, and I thought it was adorable then but now I find it extra fabulous because I finally appreciated that it is a vintage Singer sewing machine (66 or 99 or ??).

So I have reusing, rediscovering, and vintage sewing machines on my mind:

Singer 1 by Jennifer Collier

Jennifer Collier explores the ‘remaking’ of household objects by stitching found and recycled papers. Welcome to her fantastical world, where every exquisite detail is made, folded and manipulated from paper. Once books, maps, envelopes, wallpaper or scrap, the paper is transformed into textural forms. Like cloth it is stitched to construct two or three dimensional objects, decorative and functional: lampshades, cameras, tools and furniture.

The Seamstress Series by Eric Nadeau: reconfigured vintage sewing machines      via Peaberry Designs

In dissecting and rebuilding 1865 to 1950 Singer and other-vintage-brands Sewing Machines made of embellished cast iron or colorful metal pieces, Nado pays homage to feminism in the working class. Seamstresses convey a sense of nostalgia woven in our common collective history.

Martin Messier, Sewing Machine Orchestra (Photo : Alexis Bellavance)

Martin Messier doesn’t sew : he resuscitates old Singers put asleep years ago in order to release, in some magical ways, the luminous and sonorous presence of the past. He carries his public in a dreamlike universe where each machine, as singular subject, is magnified. After years of silence, Sewing Machine Orchestra is giving speech to these surviving objects of the industrial era. (video HERE)

Who knew vintage sewing machines could inspire such diverse works of art?!