Ilka the Perfex B Sewing Machine
I almost made it a year without adding to my sewing machine family, but alas I was seduced by an oddity in the local auction house last week.
The word ‘foreign’ attracted me to this little lady, I had never heard of the make Perfex B, so I left a sealed bid and won her for £14.16, rust n’all.
I spent a happy evening with a handful of wire wool and a bottle of oil, carefully taking her apart and cleaning off as much rust as I could by hand.
She cleaned up remarkably well for one who had such a neglected air. Sadly there was no case, or manual, and after a few evenings searching through google and my veteran sewing machines book I haven’t  found any mention of Perfex B.  Her mechanism doesn’t look particularly unusual, with conventional threading.  The bobbin winding contraption is fairly elaborate compared to Dawn, my older Davies sewing machine, but it winds a standard-looking torpedo bobbin. Now with all her joints well oiled, she moves beautifully, I haven’t asked her to sew yet, but I can’t see her objecting.
Anyone who happens to know where Ilka is from, and who made her, can let me know here, I’d be very interested to find out a little more about her.