{"id":11579,"date":"2013-01-30T05:17:45","date_gmt":"2013-01-30T10:17:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/?p=11579"},"modified":"2019-11-25T22:09:18","modified_gmt":"2019-11-26T03:09:18","slug":"claires-sewing-machine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2013\/01\/30\/claires-sewing-machine\/","title":{"rendered":"Claire’s Sewing Machine"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SewingHeaderFinal-JW\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"zigzag\"<\/a>Claire was an elderly neighbor of my friend\u00a0Bill\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0who passed away. Her family was looking to clear out her home, among her belongings was this wonderful sewing machine \u2013 they offered it to Bill. Since Bill doesn\u2019t sew \u2013 I\u2019ve got a new sewing machine!
\n<\/p>\n

\"SewingMachine2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The machine which had the Gimbel’s name on it, was manufactured in Japan in 1959.<\/p>\n

\"Gimbels\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Gimbel’s was a department store in Philadelphia which opened in 1894 on 8th and Market Streets.<\/p>\n

According to Ed Lamoureux of Vintage Sewing Machines<\/a>:<\/p>\n

At the end of WWII, Japan had:
\n\u2022 A large labor force of machinists looking for work
\n\u2022 Idle small-scale machine shops in the Osaka area
\n\u2022 A surplus of machine tools from the war industries
\n\u2022 And the Japanese government was subsidizing up to 50 percent of the cost of imported machine tools.<\/p>\n

They quickly realized that sewing machines could be manufactured as parts and subassemblies in separate businesses, saving the final assembler the costs of real estate, factory space, labor, and machinery. Dozens of companies sprang up to feed the American and European demand for high quality, low cost sewing machines. Many of these assemblers shipped their machines with no name to distributors in other countries where the distributors applied brands like Kenmore (Sears), Signature (Wards), Penncrest (Penneys), Gimbels, Western Auto, etc. Even small department stores were able to order sewing machines with their own brand name. Others were badged with American-sounding names and retailed directly to the public. Kinston, Remington, Universal, Wizard, and Fleetwood are just a few of the hundreds of names that machines of that era could bear.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And speaking of history – there were some other items in Claire’s sewing box that I found of interest:<\/p>\n

\"Sewing-Susan\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Attachments\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Needles\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"RulersSpools\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Rest in peace Claire, your machine is in good hands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Claire was an elderly neighbor of my friend\u00a0Bill\u2019s\u00a0who passed away. Her family was looking to clear out her home, among her belongings was this wonderful sewing machine \u2013 they offered it to Bill. Since Bill doesn\u2019t sew \u2013 I\u2019ve got … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,19],"tags":[2272,11,2270,2269,2278,277,2275,2274,3669,2276,2273,2277,2271],"class_list":["post-11579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-sewing","tag-2272","tag-bill-cucinotta","tag-ed-lamoureux","tag-gimbels","tag-instruction-manual-for-zig-zag-sewing-machine","tag-japan","tag-keystone-wood-coal-co","tag-needles","tag-philadelphia","tag-psfs","tag-sewing-susan","tag-thread-holders","tag-vintage-sewing-machines"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1ed1x-30L","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13782,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2013\/07\/17\/iphone-case\/","url_meta":{"origin":11579,"position":0},"title":"iPhone Case","author":"Tina Garceau","date":"July 17, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I made this simple case for a friend's swanky new iPhone. The fabric is Michael Miller's \"Climbing Vines\". 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When I made a sparkly silver turban for my son's Halloween costume a few years ago, that thing got worn for weeks afterwards! This is a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Crafts"","block_context":{"text":"Crafts","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/crafts-2\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/SantaBeard.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/SantaBeard.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/SantaBeard.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8186,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2012\/05\/29\/hair-bows\/","url_meta":{"origin":11579,"position":3},"title":"Sewing Bows for Sophia","author":"Tina Garceau","date":"May 29, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"My niece Sophia just celebrated her first birthday, and since a girl is never too young to learn how to accessorize - I made some bows for her hair. 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For ages, I carried a purse the size of a rucksack - the bigger the bag, the more crap you haul around. Did I really need a foil space blanket, lipgloss, small sewing kit, mascara,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mrs. Crankipants"","block_context":{"text":"Mrs. Crankipants","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/mrs-crankipants\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/MrsC-color-skirt.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/MrsC-color-skirt.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/MrsC-color-skirt.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11579\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}