-
-
-
-
We then made our way to the London Sewing Machine Museum which is free to visit and open one Saturday every month.
-
-
-
The museum is owned by Ray Rushton, whose licence plate is "SEW IN", and features over 600 historic sewing machines from 1850 to 1950.
-
-
-
The first room was filled with vintage Singer machines and the owner, Ray, supplied over 800 sewing machines to All Saints for their shop window displays.
-
-
-
-
-
-
The back room was filled with more historical machines and some of the most expensive I've ever seen.
-
-
There was a reconstruction of Ray's original shop front.
-
-
-
This sewing machine was the same model that Boy George's mother use to sew all of his costumes on, so he'd visited the museum with his TV crew and Ray had him sign it.
-
-
-
This sewing machine was made as a wedding gift for Queen Victoria's eldest daughter and has Kensington Palace etched into the scratch blade.
-
-
-
This Scottish machine was built during an era when households liked to disguise their sewing machines as ornaments and was designed to look like a lion.
-
-
-
The most expensive sewing machine in the collection was an American patent machine sent for the Great Exhibition and looked nothing like a sewing machine at all.