Sewing curtains on an old Singer sewing machine

[Brian9600]

Hello

I wasn't sure whether to post this here or in home decoration, so hope this ok.

We're moving house soon and I like the idea of making curtains for our new place. I'm not an experienced sewer and have never done curtains before, but I can spend a bit of time learning.

I only have an old Singer sewing machine- the type where you turn a handle. Will this do the job?

I have an 1896 Singer and it sews perfectly, so this is definitely possible. I suggest getting half a metre of curtain-weight fabric and experiment with sewing that thickness of material. Check that the stitches look as good on the bottom as they do on the top; you will probably be sewing from the reverse of the fabric and therefore the bottom stitches will be the ones showing on the front of the finished curtain.

You will only have one hand to control and guide the fabric so it would be best to tack before you machine stitch. Turning the handle with one hand + controlling the fabric with the other = no hands left to remove pins!

Yep. I have a variety of hand crank singers and they sew beautifully. I actually sewed an entire satin evening dress on my 1912 one when my modern machine attempted to eat the fabric (completely my fault!)! They are gorgeous to use. If you need help to thread it correctly there are lots of videos on YouTube. If you check the serial number there are websites that will tell you what the model number is.

Yes, it will be fine.
You might not need to tack. The thought of doing that for curtains would make my heart sink!

Thanks so much, everyone! Very encouraging!

I’ve got one of those - it sews better than my more modern electric machine. Much more consistent tension and it’s got really lovely long shuttle bobbins which hold loads of thread. I’ve made quite a few pairs of curtains with mine. You just need to make sure that you’ve got something to support the weight of the curtain on the left hand side of the machine - lots of space on the table top for example, as you’re going to have a lot of fabric to wrangle with one hand.