Featherweight
7 September 1960
Free arm portable machine.
Straight stitch.
Also comes as a flatbed machine the 221k.
Highly sought after and collectable.
This page added May 2023.
The 222k free arm featherweight was released in Europe as well as Australia, possibly other countries as well. I am no expert so won’t even try to go into depth about the history of this machine. If you want more information, I can suggest you go to The Singer Featherweight Shop (singer-featherweight.com) they also have the manual available for free download on their website.
All I can do is describe this little gem that I found locally. It has been in my collection since 2021, having purchased it from the owner on FB marketplace. Neither I nor the seller at the time had any idea how collectable a machine it was, I guess I just was in the right place at the right time. I did not know anything about featherweights, except people collected them.
Getting the machine home and doing some quick research I discovered I had been very lucky indeed. I opened the box and was hit by a “new car smell”, everything was just lovely for a 60-year-old machine. It looked like someone had used it lightly then put it away to sleep. Nothing is seized and nothing is corroded, even the rubber/plastic that coats the electrical wires is pristine. Not only was the machine in extremely good condition, it is also a “RED S”. At first, I was perplexed, so what did RED S mean? Well, it has a red badge, that is all. As far as I can tell the RED S are the same as other 222s. The photos below are of the machine when I got it home.
I have since been loath to touch it, as I wanted to learn more about these early machines, before I did anything wrong. So the machine has sat in its box for the last year and a half. One day soon I will get her out, then clean, polish and oil her.
Below are the photos I took back in 2021.
