# Hand sewing machine

> Still sews a straight seam, if you turn it slowly.

https://vitrine.themes.dev/collection/sewing-machine/

- Made by: Unknown maker
- Date: About 1905
- Material: Cast iron, steel, walnut
- Size: 40 cm long
- Cost new: Four pounds ten, on weekly payments
- Came from: Dorothy Merrin’s house, 2009
- On view: The workshop, by the window

Bought on weekly payments in 1905, a shilling a week for ninety weeks. The gold flowers have worn away where a right hand rested on the arm.

We keep it in the workshop gallery because most of what it made was for work: aprons, knife rolls, sacking for the packing room. The library lends a later machine of the same kind.