White Kenmore Domestic cast iron sewing machine
White manufactured sewing machines for a variety of companies, from Sears Kenmore brand, to the Domestic brand, so you will find these heavy gray sewing machines with several brand names and model numbers, but White is the manufacturer of them. The early cast iron machines were incredibly heavy, and very strong sewers, with some machine owners saying they compared favorably with some industrial sewing machines!
TIP- ALWAYS INSPECT THE WIRING ON ALL OLD SEWING MACHINES, before plugging them in, to test them. Wiring ages poorly, it can crack, or fray, and mice, dogs, and children, all love to chew on the cords, so bare wires are a risk of electrocution! You can test sew by turning the handwheel, to see if the machine is "free" (not frozen with dried up oil), but never plug in an old machine without first checking the electrical wiring.
Manual for Kenmore model 55 by White
The friction pulley style motor fell out of fashion, but for several generations, these early machines were a treasure, a much faster way to turn fabric, and even old clothing and textiles, into useful garments, home decor, toys, and other practical, functional items, than sewing by hand.
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| Model # 117.552 |
When looking for presser feet for these machines, always test the foot on the machine, by hand turning the handwheel, to ensure the needle actually will go through the tiny needle opening in each presser foot, before attempting to use the motor, since the needle to shank placement is not the same between brands of sewing machines, and especially with straight stitch sewing machines, it can be difficult to tell which set of Griest feet, fit which Ssewing machine.
A quilting foot is used with the underbraider, to sew on your decorative braid, by placing braiding to feed through the underbraider, under your sewing project, which was placed right side down, so the machine operator would follow the chalk design drawn onto the wrong side of the fabric. This made decorative braiding easy to sew.
Griest manufactured sewing machine feet and attachments, for the majority of sewing machine brands, for quite a long time, and with so many brands of vintage, and antique sewing machines, you will discover that, especially with the top mounting sewing machine feet, there are several different sizes of U shaped shanks, and each brand of machine needs the one sized especially for their own set of feet, to avoid damaging your machine.
There are shirring plates, and an underbraider plate for these models, as shown in my photo. The shirring plate can be used with the ruffler, even though it is separate from the ruffler. This allowed for ruffles to be gathered and sewn in the middle of fabric, not just along the edges of fabric.
This next 4 photos show a set of the correct style of feet for these White manufactured Kenmore, or Domestic models, but the underbraider and shirring plate are not for a rotary bobbin machine like mine, the long plates are for what are called Vibrating Shuttle machines, which use long bobbins and shuttles.
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| Underbraider plate and shirring plate, with ruffler for my Kenmore |
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