Welcome to a new feature here on Handmade Detroit: VINTAGE CRAFTY! Woohoo!

It makes sense. Think of how often you’re at the thrift store and come across a lot of great Butterick patterns; you use your mom’s 1966 Singer (or was that just me?); your favorite pinking shears have been passed down to you from your grams. Let’s face it, craftiness and vintage-ness go hand in hand.

To get this going, I present the Singer Tiny Tailor from 1982. I found this for $15.83 at my local Value World.

The premise is simple: fix your clothes with this bitty sewing machine, even if you have NO IDEA how to sew. If they had “Sewing for Dummies” back in the early ’80s, I’m sure Singer would have sponsored a book.

I was kind of amazed at the machine’s functions: on and off. No foot pedal, no reverse stitches, just f’ing on and off. But for a 26-year-old faux sewing machine, this lil’ sucker is a trooper.

The thread and bobbin are easy to get going. All of the “guts” of the machine are in this door (above), where you also thread the machine. I did have to use the needle threader, as the hole on this bad boy is tiiiiiny.

Simply lower the needle, lower the presser foot and turn it on!

The Tiny Tailor was in the same family as electric scissors, those bizarre mendors that look like flat irons for hair, etc. But I bet if you were a swinging advertising account gal in the early ’80s and your favorite Sears slacks had a snag right before the big Tab proposal, damn, the Tiny Tailor was there for you.

We’ve got more photos over on Flickr, so check it out.

Now, I couldn’t find a video of the Tiny Tailor I bought, but here’s one 11 years later in 1993. Who knew sewing could be this easy?!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju3N84LkPts[/youtube]