vintage sewing cabinets

THE BRILLIANT UNSUNG DESIGN OF SINGER'S NO 74 "SPINET" CABINET FOR SEWING MACHINES:

Most classic sewing tables have a central and glaring ergonomic flaw that few have attempted to tackle with design. The flaw arises from an unskillful negotiation between what the user needs and what the physical dimensions of the table provide.

The central problem is that a sewing machine operator should be centered on the needle of the machine, which is off to the left side. They must be able to clearly see what the needle is doing and use both hands to guide the fabric. But most sewing tables are trying to fit a 15-inch wide machine in an unobtrusive footprint, so the designers would center the machine in a table scarcely wider than the machine itself. Thus, when the operator sits at the table and places their legs in the space allotted, they are centered on the machine itself and must lean to the left to get their noses in line with the needle. If you shift your seat over to be centered on the needle, you hit your left leg on the left table leg. I wonder that there's not a generation of 20th-century women with S-shaped spines.

One table that actually addressed this problem, tackled it with creative design, and even added some Mid-Century Modern flair is Singer's No. 74 "Spinet" Cabinet, which is shaped like a trapezoid.

The front panel swings open to the right...

...allowing you to pull the table's left-side support, including the front left leg, out to the side.

The top can then be flipped to the left, coming to rest on the moveable leg.

Getting the front left leg out of the way centers the operator on the needle and provides more generous legroom.

The trapezoidal shape of the top provides a slight wraparound effect when open. Additionally, since the open tabletop is now resting on an actual table leg rather than a swing-out metal bar, it has more significant support. Lastly, the trapezoidal shape looks stylish as heck when it's all closed up.

I consider this design an all-around winner, and am surprised that we never looked at transforming mid-century furniture like this in our History of Industrial Design classes at school. And sadly, the original designer's name is unknown.

BELOW WE SEE SINGER CABINET NO 71 AGAIN ONE OF THE UNSUNG DESIGNS

As we'll see here, bigger ain't always better.

The nice thing about Singer's No. 71 Cabinet is that it looks nice whether open or closed. The workings of its mechanical parts are largely invisible no matter where in the opening process you are.

In contrast, this gargantuan wall cabinet looks hideous and ill-considered the second you open the doors. Not exactly how I'd want to start off an activity.

A dual-level table flips out of the cabinet.

Inside are tilted spool holders.

While at first that seems a good use of space, I question the way they're arrayed; it seems it would be more effective if you could see everything at a glance, rather than having the spools in front obscure the colors of the spools in the back. And the ones off in the corner seem they'd be hard to reach.

The storage provided below doesn't seem any better-considered; it appears designed to hold large, bulky items rather than the variety of small objects required in sewing.

Another huge cabinet whose design I find curious is this one:

It seems unwieldy as heck, but the whole thing is meant to be pulled open. Seems heavy, and I wonder how stable it is on just those four legs.

Inside it's got huge spool pins probably meant for yarn rather than thread, and flip-out drawers.

If you look closely you can see the dowel the drawers pivot around. And while they initially seem neat, on second thought I question their efficacy; the position of the dowel pivot requires leaving a space between the drawers, so that they can clear each other while opening, so that space in between them is essentially dead space.

The prettiest of the large cabinets I've seen also appears to be the oldest:

Labeled "Corticelli," it appears to be a POP display for thread.

Save for the bottom-most drawer, the pull-out drawers have thick glass fronts, and if you look at the sides of the insides of the drawers, you can see the drawer bottoms are stepped and angled, probably to increase visibility.

The top appears to be solid oak so this thing must weigh a shit-ton. (For you European readers, that's an American unit of weight roughly equivalent to your metric ton.)