A Great-Grandmother’s Sewing Machine
Lauren Beveridge, Scout + Bean
The object: Growing up in Oakland, Lauren Beveridge learned to sew from her mom, but the machine she got the most practice on — and that she credits with planting the seeds of a lifelong maker mentality — belonged to her great-grandmother, Parmelie Sturtevant, who lived down the road, in Waterville. “Grammy Pam” bought her Singer Featherweight 221 new in the 1960s, and Beveridge did her adolescent sewing on it, took it to college, and brought it to her home in Lincolnville, where she now runs her one-woman Scout + Bean studio, designing and stitching elegant and functional bags and baskets. These days, she mostly uses cotton rope, for which she doesn’t use the Singer, but her daughter is nearly five — old enough, Beveridge says, for lessons on Grammy Pam’s machine.
On repairability: “Now, everything’s plastic. If it breaks, you buy a new one. The machine I sew on now costs $180, and if it breaks, it’s cheaper to replace it. The Featherweight is a tank. It’s all metal, and it’s heavy. It was made to fix, and it was made to last.”
On a can-do mentality: “My mom raised me — also my grandmother and my great-grandmother — to be like, “Oh, we’ll fix that. We’ll figure that out.” Whether it’s fixing a dishwasher or mending clothes, it was just ingrained in me from a young age that, hey, we can do that. We will make that. And it will be awesome.”
If you’re gifting: Scout + Bean’s $80 rope pail, with its copper clasps and leather grip, is attractive and versatile — and burly enough to carry a heavy load.
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