Vintage Elna Advertising

Sewing19 Comments

When I was writing the post on my new Elna, I searched ‘Elna-Discs’ to try and discover the names of all those fancy stitches.  Instead I came across this lovely image on another blog – which summed up exactly how I felt the day I bought my machine home!

image sourced here – do visit and read her purchase story!

I never did find many names for the fancy stitches, but I did find more vintage Elna advertisements – so I thought I’d share!

 

image sourced here

 

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They don’t make them like that anymore!

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Designer, Patternmaker, Blogger Of All Things Sewing. Follow as I share projects, patterns, and my favourite tricks of the trade.

19 thoughts on “Vintage Elna Advertising”

  8. I am smiling out loud reading this post. First because the advertising is so delightful and it evokes a feeling that I have had with each and every machine I have, new or vintage. This may be a condition with its own diagnosis, machine-a-mania?

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  9. I had an old Kenmore, purchased in 1970, that had cams. Maybe you could find something that would help you on a vintage Kenmore site.

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  11. Vintage ads are the best. Everyone looks so happy.

    I just discovered your wonderful blog and am preparing to make a ruby slip. Thanks for the pattern and instructions. It must be cool to live in New Zealand. Your country was beautiful in the Lord of the ring movies.

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  12. They were doing that right into the 70s – the whole case is really quite an ingenious design, the way everything packs together. Does require a bit of a knack though!

    The only problem with it is that you have to make sure the case doesn't get dirty or rusty.

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  13. Thanks for sharing these great photos. I have a Supermatic too, and I just love the mechanical perfection of it. Even the little cam door is well engineered. I think they were the first machines to have free arms and reverse stitches.
    I don't think the stitches or cams ever had names, just numbers. The Elna wizard in the US is Ray White, his site has a nice chart of all the cams here http://www.whitesewingcenter.com/elnaparts.php.

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  14. Lovely purchase, it's a beautiful machine!

    If you have more questions, the Wefixit Yahoo group has an amazing amount of info on vintage machines. Several Elna lovers there, and plenty of help with cams.

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  15. My mum has a singer with similar disks. It was 20 years old second hand when she bought it in the 60s and is still going strong. Brilliant thing. You're right. They absolutely don't make them like they used to – the ads and the machines :o)

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  16. My mother bought a new Elna with some money her mother had left her . That was about 1972 . That machine is still going strong and she still has all the cams . I learnt to really sew on that machine and made all my university ball season dresses on it. Those dresses made the rounds of all the college balls not always on my back . I was at school with girls who had a lot more disposable income than me and yet they always lined up to see what I had come back to uni with and asking whether they could borrow them . That machine made so much possible for me !!

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