New Home Addiction

I have loved the New Home sewing machine models that have the built-in storage, like the XL-II, My-Excel, and the Memory Craft 6000, that I just couldn't resist getting the SL-2022:

New Home SL-2022 by Janome

It was on auction so you never know what condition it will be in but I've found more and more of these transactions are turning out quite well. This one arrived wrapped in bubble wrap and even the parts inside the loose plastic cover were wrapped and padded: nothing came broken! We were out of town to a family wedding in Florida to be held on the beach that turned out much, much better than expected so I came home with a very positive attitude. All of the parts were there, the hand wheel turned, light came on, but the dials didn't want to turn. It was late so I had to put it aside and get some sleep.

The next morning I could take a closer look, get out the hair dryer to put some heat on the old stiff dials, and see if there was any real damage. Nope: it moved slowly and quite stiff but disuse can do that. I continued to clean and oil, getting everything moving and was finally ready to start sewing. That's when I noticed the presser foot was up. It was stuck in the up position. It was rusted in the up position.Once again I had to walk away so I could sew up some of the bentwood case carrying straps, this time an order for two Featherweight strap sets that are always custom sized:

Carrying case strap set

It was good to have this presser foot stuck-in-the-up-position problem to simmer while I thought up a solution. It came to me that I could loosen it up with a tap from a hammer but even after letting it sit in oil for a day it wasn't going to budge. Then I looked at the top of the presser foot rod and could see the top clearly. Do I dare give it a tap? Or two? Finally on the third tap it moved. It was free again!

All those accessories under the top lid but see the black knob on the left? That's the presser foot rod in there.

Using cotton swabs and Evaporust, I cleaned up the rod and removed as much of the rust as I could but I can still go back and use a bit of emery cloth to polish it up. Now let's see how it actually sews.

Not so hot: the tension on the bottom was a straight line. More adjustments, new needle, new thread, more adjusting, and I can finally get a good stitch:

To some extent I think it just needed to be run again but good thread and a new needle did the trick. The dials are still a bit stiff but everything works and all of the snap-on presser feet are in the top compartment and the rest of the accessories are in the little box in front of the bobbin area so it's a very self contained unit. The manual is original and in good shape and I did need it for details on the threading. Yes, I even read the manual from time to time. In the end, this is a nice sewing machine that would make a good starter that probably wouldn't need to be traded out since it would give continued performance for probably the life of most sewers/crafters.

It was a nice time away to have a beach wedding in Florida when Minnesota was getting its first snow but now we seem to have the cold here to stay so no mild November for us. It's another craft fair weekend and I'm ready to roll!