Portable

Do you like to travel? How about with your sewing machine? I've had the opportunity to repair choir robes but due to their size it works better if I travel to the robes instead of bringing them home with me. At spring break last year I spend about ten hours with my sewing machine in a hallway sewing zippers down and mending split seams on sleeves. At that time I took my Singer Featherweight with me:

Singer 221 the Featherweight

Somehow it made the job a little more fun! For the summer months I've been asked again if I can tackle the rest of the robes and I said "Sure, I'll have all summer to work on them." I got the keys and went to look at the scope of the job. Oh oh, there are 14 polyester robes and 74 velvet robes. Although each one is marked with what needs to be done, it's still a daunting task. Today I decided I better get started so I had to decide if I wanted to take the Featherweight again or.....?

When you have as many sewing machines as I do it seems like it might be a bit overwhelming but I came up with my victim model pretty fast: the Singer 354 Genie:

Here she is out of her carrying case

I wrote about her in an earlier post on 3/4 sized sewing machines but I hadn't taken her out since then and I wanted to see how she would sew on these difficult fabrics and situations. She has a nice feel, similar to the Singer 401,403, 404 series, and handled the polyester just fine. I did find the backstitch button to be stiff, having to keep it down firmly if you want to replicate the stitch you just did other wise it made teeny tiny stitches (which aren't too bad if you just want to lock in your stitches).

So here is where I worked today:

You can see the Genie on a table to the left and the massive rack with 88 robes. Now wait a minute, the piano sits between the sewing machine and robes and it has 88 keys. There's some symmetry going on there, right? Today only found the 14 girls choir robes finished and I've recruited a co-worker to help me on the velvet robes since it looks like I might have to spend every weekend doing this if I don't have help. Now which sewing machine should I take next time?