Don't Feel Blue

Just in case pink Necchi's are not quite your cup-of-tea, I brought home a blue Centennial sewing machine. Not quite sure who made Centennials? I had only heard of centennial Singers that marked 100 years of the company and this was not a Singer. It does have a FA-772 marked on the back, along with Janome so I can run a search for additional information.

Here's how she looked when I brought her home:

Not too bad, huh? There were no accessories or manual and this time I think I might need one. She was very slow to start so a good cleaning and oiling were first up. When I check under the hood, so to speak, I saw a plastic gear and was disappointed but it's only one and it does appear to be working fine. Here she is with the extension table that was snapped into the suitcase carrying case when I found her:

Why would I need a manual? Note the small metal loop next to the tension dial and the words "chain stitch":

How would you use that simple thread holder to do a chain stitch? So the research is on to find this out! In the meantime I start to sew with her and straight and zigzag stitches work fine, blind hemmer stitch works, dial past the 4-step buttonhole and then I  try out the feather stitch. Whoa. It only goes backwards. This sounds a bit familiar and I remember the Vikings getting stuck on reverse when they couldn't get out of the buttonholer mechanism so I'm assuming this is what's happened. Yes, when you click past the 4-steps you can see the reverse button moving in and out but not fully out again when you dial to the next stitch. You see, for a 4-step buttonhole you stitch one row of small zigzag forward, several wide zigzags at the end, and then the third step makes those same small zigzags backwards, with the final step another wide zigzag back where you started. It appears to have gotten stuck in step three, the going backwards step. Remedy? Hot hair dryer blowing on the gummed up parts and an application of oil should get this part moving again.

Update: I looked inside the cover and watched the changes as I switched from one stitch to another. It was not a malfunction of the buttonhole stitch not being able to come out of reverse but something else. I'm not sure how to even phrase the question but I will try and post it to one of the Yahoo Groups I belong to and see what develops. Now don't hold your breath while waiting for an answer but I hope to find one...eventually. Now I am blue!