#but I think because I speak neither Punjab nor Hindi I have not received a response

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I heard industrial sewing machines and came running.

I hope you don’t mind me butting but recently I’ve been obsessed with finding and restoring vintage machines and they used to make them SO CUTE

The baby lock 605 has been my white whale recently, I found a lady on fb marketplace selling one in my budget range but she ghosted me :[ It was the first serger to retail in the US* It also came in teal and AHHHH what I wouldn’t give for her to be mine!

The overlock I ended up getting for my own usage is this guy. I’ve been documenting the process of getting her up and running. It was originally meant to be mounted in a table, like most industrial machines, but it didn’t come with a table and I don’t have any to spare. I’ve been rigging the motor to sit behind the machine so it can be (somewhat) transportable

But the make and model is basically identical to a few other overlocks I’ve seen sold internationally. I found this video which shows a cherry red (!!) version of the same machine

*I’m not going to bog down this post with the baby lock/JUKI merger mystery when it came to the US because I’m still working out the time line myself but the EA-605 was at least one of the first domestic** overlocks sold in the US hitting the market in 1974

**American sewing machine manufacturer Merrow actually invented the first ‘crochet machine’ in 1868 but as far as I can tell they didn’t really see domestic use, as Merrow continued to specialize in hyper specific industrial sewing machines

re ugly/cute industrial sewing machines, one of the ones they had at my college was shiny candy red and with a sort of round retro-vibes casing, i never got to use it but she haunts me ill never find another machine that cute 😔

ooh that sounds delightful! I've never seen a red sewing machine of any kind!

While most of the industrial machines I've used have been the same icky pebbled greige, there was a very old keyhole buttonholer at my previous job that was a nice light green. I think it might have been this kind. I have some photos of it somewhere but I don't know which hard drive they're on so I shan't look for them today.

It was a really nice machine. It does One Thing and that's buttonholes, and it had a little dial on the side showing how many it had made in its lifetime, and the number was in the millions.

While the main sewing machine and the blind hemmer at my current job are also the same ugly colour, the serger is at least a nice green on the bottom.

Still beige on the top though, alas.