I endorse what Tamara says. Don't know Jeri's background, but I too come
from a long line of weavers, tailors and dressmakers all in the East End of
London (the poor part), and the emphasis was on making basic plain clothing,
reusing the good parts of discarded clothes from the wealthy, hemming and
binding sheets, blankets, and other household furnishings, and mending. Lace
and embroidery were embellishments which had no place in the lives of those
people. Everything was done as cheaply and quickly as possible to earn a few
pennies for basic needs.
Never heard reference of a sewing machine being used for embroidery until
the early 1950s, and never heard of it's use for lace until very recently.
Even when my mother bought a brand new Singer machine in the early 50s, the
salesman's pitch was only for its utilitarian and money-saving uses. The
instruction book didn't mention them either.
My grandmother (born 1884) used to buy as many of the needlecraft magazines
she could afford (she was earning pennies for errands and babysitting at age
10), especially when she was young, and passed some of them on to my mother.
They were brown and falling apart when my mother died, but I looked at them
all before binning them. None of the advertisements for sewing machines
mentioned embroidery or lace. I assume they were pubished in the UK.
Jean in Poole, Dorset, UK
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