With a Little Help From Our Friends

 I'm back. I didn't go anywhere, I just needed a break from my usual fair and, unfortunately, I left my readers behind. It was a long, tough winter and spring seems so have eluded us in Minnesota, but let's proceed with springtime in our souls.

Sewing machine sales and repairs have been busy as well as sewing, sewing, sewing on all the different sewing machines. Lovely women have come to sew at my house, making zippered pouches, then fleece mittens, followed by fleece slippers. Okay, so maybe that was the wrong order and they should have accomplished the easier slippers before tackling the more difficult mittens (left, right or right left?), a good time was had by all.

Then there was Wendy, bless her heart, who had a vision of what she wanted to make after tackling the above projects. On her way to making a rag quilt with some of her mother's clothing, she paused to make machine embroidered pillowcases for the boys in her life. What started out as sports themed motifs for three boys on Easter turned into a total of five:

Four of the final five pillowcases

We used the Singer Futura XL 400 to download and stitch out the designs and I made Wendy stitch up the rest of the pillowcase on another machine. After she handed them out, the oldest nephew, at 16, pulled her aside and said "Aunt Wendy, I got the best one!", a Nike shoe she did pick out just for him.

Here's the blessing in doing this kind of work with others: while we were getting this all sewn over a couple weeks in March and April, Wendy's youngest sister is getting sicker and sicker, finally going to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Surgery was scheduled, testing was done, but before she could have the surgery she died, leaving behind that 16 year old son mentioned above and a six year old who got the spider man pillowcase. No one knew this was going to happen so fast and are scrambling to place the boys into another aunt's home in their hometown. Working on these pillowcases gave Wendy a reason to come to our house and talk about her sister and what she was going through, talking with my husband who was in the medical field before early retirement, who has also been a chaplain. We didn't know this was a respite in her life, a chance to get out of the house and direct her energy into something creative. But, Wendy didn't have a sewing machine at home and that's why she was using mine.

In steps Warren, a recent widow, whose wife had been giving me fabric and sewing "stuff" (that's an official sewing term, look it up) over the years after she became legally blind. Jenny told Warren that when she died she wanted her sewing stuff to go to Karen because she would know what to do with it. Oh, you betcha! First came two sewing machines, then a tackle box of supplies, and I hear there are more bobbins coming, too. Now who should those sewing machines go to? I usually have no clue but this time I thought about Wendy and asked her if she would like the refurbished Signature model to use, for free, to see if she would like to eventually purchase it or just return it. She's going to give it a go, hoping to return it later when she has more skills and could use a better sewing machine. I don't think she's going to need a better machine because this one is really nice, just purring along with a great stitch. When I told Warren about the new home for one of the sewing machines, he was taken aback at first, then remembered who Wendy was, and a big smile came across his face. That was going to be a good home for one of Jenny's sewing machines; I agree.

Wendy holding up flaming baseball pillowcase

 

Are You Ready?

 It's been a busy time here, getting ready for a garage sale as well as buying and restoring sewing machines (and sewing). Although I've had sewing machine garage sales where I put out thirty to forty sewing machines and sergers, this time it's just a garage sale except there were three tables of fabric and three or four tables of jewelry. You read that right: jewelry. Along with hot mitts, towels, ironing board covers, and a whole lot of other sewn items, my craft fair booth has included tables of my husbands collection of jewelry for sale. Scouring garage sales, thrift stores, and antique shops, he collected quite a bit of vintage jewelry, some to refashion, some to clean up, as well as supplies to make new earrings, bracelets, and necklaces. Although he did fairly well, by now he was tired of those boxes taking up space and making him feel guilty for losing interest in this hobby.  He decided to sell it all at a garage sale so we plunged into  those boxes and priced everything for sale at about 90% off of our original asking price. Although it took a whole weekend and many other nights, we got it all done. Here's what it looked like when we took photos for the ad:

Table full of jewelry!

Jewelry making supplies

Table full and waiting to be taken out to the driveway

Along with the jewelry, I went through bin after bin of fabric to remove anything I knew I wasn't going to use. It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be and rather cathartic. There were pieces I ended up with as part of a package deal that I had not picked out myself and really didn't even have any money into them, fake fur from fifty years ago (no kidding), and vintage linen left over from my collection that I was not going to use. It all was measured and priced, put in plastic bags, for a huge amount of sale fabric. 

It was a heat warning day when we opened up, vowing to close at 3 pm when the heat would peak. On that first day we sold as much as the next two days combined despite the heat. All of the jewelry making supplies were sold and about half of the jewelry, same as the fabric bundles. It was great but we planned on having the sale two weekends in a row and our stock looks pretty weak in comparison to when we started. We can't/won't produce more jewelry but I can keep going through fabric bins to see what else might be sold. Yes, there were bins that didn't get sorted yet so I have more work to do!

While this was going on I continue to buy sewing machines and have a few that are pretty nifty: Singer 201, some plastic Singers, two Montgomery Wards machines, White sergers, and the best of all, a Singer 1200. I loved the 1200 I bought last year and was sorry to see it go so when my husband and I stopped at a thrift store on senior discount Tuesday and spied this lovely, it came home with us. Unfortunately, it started to emit a thin stream of white smoke from the motor so I knew it was going to need to be rewired. Following Rain's series of blog posts on How to Rewire a Potted Motor, I'm almost done but it has been quite a job. As it turns out, this motor had been rewired previously so it didn't seem like it was going to respond well to another attempt. Since I had another Singer 201 potted motor in a machine with terrible cosmetic flaws, I was able to exchange parts between machines to ensure at least one would be safe and working. 

When putting it all back together, I noticed the 1200 had some electrical tape on the controller box, what is used as a foot controller in this model.

Inside of the controller box and wiring

It was easy to rewire the controller, no splicing needed but now much safer:

New wire added, ready to be installed

It continued to smoke and the motor was hot to touch so something was still wrong. After much reading about the possible problems, I ended up taking a motor from another 201-2. This time it worked great except that foot peddle wasn't as responsive so it would keep stitching even when I removed my foot. More adjustments but this is minor and I'm happily sewing on it now out in the garage.

It's swimsuit season and I've stitched up six so far: two for each the nieces in Michigan and one for each of my granddaughters.  I got carried away with the nieces and not only made the suits but also tote bags with their names:

Suits and tote bag for Frannie

Suits and tote bag for Vivi

Both girls are on swim team and have to wear regulation swimsuits but for when they are home in their own pool they can have "fashion" suits. I loved making them up, making them feel special. My niece said they loved them and I even got thank you cards.

Which machine did I use? My Bernina 1100DA serger, of course, but this time I bought a new toy for it to play with: an elasticator foot. It was my hope that it would make sewing on the elastic in the swimsuits five openings easier but there was a learning curve that almost made me want to give up. Even though you feed the elastic into the foot and there is a tension dial, you still need to figure out how much tension you should add when the elastic is in your hands. This enabled me to add more tension on the back of the leg openings and less on the front of the legs. By the time I was done with the four suits I was getting the hang of it. The next two suits were for my granddaughters and it was much easier

Evelyn's dinosaur swimsuit

That's enough for now and I hope to continue writing about sewing machines and my adventures with them but for now I'm just enjoying sewing with all the different machines. Who wouldn't?

She's Not Blue

Today is the day I've been waiting for: the quilt I made for my sister Sue is being delivered. This quilt was truly a labor of love: love for my sister and love for quilting. Last spring, during shut down, I made a quilt for my sister Mindy. It wasn't a big plan, just a bundle of quilting fabrics I bought from a quilting friend for $3 that I managed to put together into a pleasing pattern. I liked it, quilted it with her name in it, and sent it off. It was more of a whim than anything but this time I wanted to make a quilt that was more of a custom order, just what the recipient would want. 

Finding a bundle of blue quilt fabric at the Goodwill Outlet (I always seem to find these great bargains), I brought them home, washed, and set them aside while I contemplated their use. Over time I finally thought about Sue's love of the color blue so maybe I would make her a blue quilt. Checking out quilt patterns, I fell in love with Triple Barnstar quilt pattern by Amy Gibson

and thought it fit with my sisters decor also. I sent her a photo of the pattern and a stack of fabrics to see how she liked them and if she would like a quilt like this. It was an enthusiastic YES so I got started. The cutting and piecing went together very fast, maybe due to the rather large size of the pieces, and I used my Singer 66 Red Eye treadle for the piecing. I can't explain why but I like to piece on the treadle!

Spread out on the bed: looking good

This photo was before sewing it together and it seemed okay; I sent this photo to my quilting daughter, Kelly, and she also liked it. Here it is spread out on the porch floor

In full view, top pieced and sewn together.

I shared this photo with several people and all were fine with it. I added the row of four stars at the top and bottom so it was bigger and better able to fit on a queen sized bed, the requested size. By now I hope you have found the flaw in my assembly. Take a good look at the corners: the two on the right are facing out (correct) and the two on the left are not. Of course, I didn't discover this until I was way too far into the free motion quilting to make the change. I guess this just shows how "unique" this quilt really is!

Next up was the quilting and I spent many hours trying to figure out what to quilt where. After learning more from online quilting sessions, I wanted to highlight the white spaces and let the blue fabrics have a supporting role. Once I figured out what to quilt where on a quarter of the quilt, it was easy to repeat the patterns on the next quarter and the next until I was all done. It has a star theme:

Large white spaces with stars and fill

This gets difficult to describe but I made three star templates that I then used to trace out the stars and then use a fill of meandering loops. Some spaces have scallops in large or small proportions, there are other sections that have been divided into quarters for looped lines. Well, you get the idea. I loved how the final wide white border turned out with packed leaves and it was fun to do, too.

Wide border before binding

Which sewing machine did I use? It's a new-to-me Elna Quilting Queen 7300 that I just picked up in the last month and is she a beauty!

Elna Quilting Queen 7300

I knew it would be a good machine and it was a very good deal but I didn't know I was going to use it for this quilt but it has some very perfect features. The free motion was made so much easier, I love the thread cutting (it's better than my Viking Designer 1), bobbin winding was super easy, the presser foot can pull way up and lock in place to get the bulk of the quilt under the foot, it came with a large table to help support the weight of the quilt, and it was just fun! I did have to watch my tension and when I forgot I ended up taking out three sections and quilting them again. It could be my new main machine but we shall see. Much to my surprise, it also has a built in walking foot that I used for the binding:

Walking foot on Elna 7300

It was just like the Pfaff IDT where it pulls down from the back of the presser foot and locks in place. I'm using it now for a chenille quilt and it's just perfect, keeping the fabric from sliding out of alignment. Finally, I made up a label using a Singer Quantum XL400 embroidery machine:

Label on the back corner

I took the quilt to church and my daughter's house for better chance on getting the whole quilt into a photograph so here's the final result:

Triple Barnstar in blue with added stars

It's out for delivery today and I can't wait until she gets it because she knows how much labor is involved and how much I love her. The flaws and errors? It just shows that it wasn't made on a machine but was quilted at home just for her. 

UPDATE:

Sue got her package on Wednesday so we had a long phone conversation at night: she loves it! Just so you can see it in her home, here is a photo she sent:

Triple Barnstar in blue for Sue

New and Old Loves

 Sometimes I'm my own worst enemy. For example, I answered an ad for sweater mitten supplies. Sounds innocent enough, but I didn't get my questions answered, such as how many mittens are cut out (answer: many), is a pattern included (answer: there are free patterns online), and other questions that are pretty straightforward but the answers were dodgie. I went ahead and drove out to pick up a very large box of supplies from her husband who couldn't answer any questions but would take my money and help get it into my car. After getting home and sorting through the box, I ended up with supplies for only 9 pairs of mittens, wool that hadn't been washed yet,  2 skeins of cheap yarn, a stack of thin fleece, and a huge pile of scraps that went right into my garbage. Oh my, what have I gotten into? I found a better pattern online, used my own fleece and wool, and started to sew sweater mittens. I seemed to have gotten carried away because I now have 52 pairs of mittens all ready for the fall craft fairs. Maybe this didn't turn out so bad.

Because I wanted the mittens I made to be different and, hopefully, better than some I've seen, I decided to quilt the lower palm section and add leather to the upper palm. This proved to be a bit of a problem because the leather had a small amount of stretch so it kept expanding as I sewed and there would be a pucker at the end. Then I remembered the Pfaff IDT, their version of a built in walking foot. This time I decided to get even more strategic by anchoring the leather onto the palm by using a spray used by quilters to hold the many layers of fabric together before sewing without using pins or basting. Between the spray basting and the walking foot/IDT, they went together like a breeze. I didn't put leather on all of the palms, just a selection, but all of the lower palms were quilted. I'm pleased with the end result and can now put this project away until fall when I'll add some in a child's size. Craft fairs: here we come!

Wool and fleece mittens with fleece lining.

Vintage linen continues to haunt me so I cut out a series of circles for my zipper cases to hold ear buds or anything else you might need a small holder for. I had great fun cutting them out but knew I would need to purchase extra zippers. Loving the look of lace zippers, I ordered an assortment package as well as regular all white zippers and went to town:

Zipper pouches in vintage linen

They are fun to do, no special machine needed this time, but I made up over forty! Plans are being made to make some for kids but for now I need a break. Before I leave the vintage linen projects, here's one more:

Fortune tellers

I saw this idea last year and now put it into action: linen napkins were starched using liquid starch so there are more like light cardboard, folded, and written on with a Micron pen. Did you make these with paper in school? Inside are little sayings like "You are my sunshine" and "When I count my blessings I count you twice" as well as some famous quotes. There were easy to make and are just a bit more sophisticated in the vintage linen. Now I have twenty of these to add to the craft fair stock.

And finally, something not sewn, I've made up my own shoes:

Crocheted summer shoes

I came across a pattern and decided this might be fun so I tracked down a pair of flip flops for the sole, punched holes for the crochet hook, and started picking up stitches:

Evenly spaced holes really helps

Although my first shoe looked good, it was too big and wouldn't stay on my foot. I made up the second one and this time I altered the pattern to decrease stitches after the third row and kept working at making my stitches tighter and smaller. Here's a comparison of the first and second shoes:

I wore them around the house the whole day and they were very comfortable. Next up, I'm looking for black flip flops, a color I find I'm wearing a lot and could use another pair for summer. Maybe I'll design my own this time instead of trying to adapt a pattern. A big thank you goes out to the Make and Do Crew for providing this pattern and good instructions.

I've been working on sewing machines, getting them ready for sale or admitting defeat and stripping for parts, when I came upon a Singer Quantum XL-6000 sewing and embroidery machine. This is a real top-of-the-line machine that sat on my shelf too long. I've been getting it ready for sale but find it is so sophisticated I have to sit down with the manual to set up each part. From the thread exchanger to the endless bobbin, it's way cool.

Singer Quantum XL-6000

Jelly Roll Rugs without the Jelly

 It has been another busy week with sewing machines and sewing projects. You never know which sewing machines are going to be sought after until you run an ad and the phone rings off the hook. Actually, the phone never rang at all but I did have six people who got in touch with me via text and email who wanted a pink and dark gray Brother Select-O-Matic I advertised for sale. I've had eight of this model over the years and even kept one for myself but never have they been this popular. Due to the poor condition of the paint on the bed of the machine, I repainted it in November but then let it "cure" so there would be a nice hard finish when I was ready to sell it. First contact was from Susan, a repeat customer, so I was willing to hold it for her. Then came the other inquiries and I even managed to sell the same model in teal that was in even better condition but there was just something about the pink and gray finish that is irresistible. Here's hoping Susan is loving her Brother Select-O-Matic as much as I love mine.

Brother Select-O-Matic in recovered case

I have been intrigued by the jelly roll rugs, those easy to make rugs that use a set of strips 2.5" wide and 44" long that are rolled up and sold in a bundle called a jelly roll. As if that wasn't easy enough, they also have a roll of batting that is 2.5" wide, sold in rolls of 25 or 50 yards. I had been sitting on a 50 yard roll but didn't want to use one of the jelly rolls I had in my stash so I cut my own using the Simplicity cutter. Here it is with the strips I cut for my own rug:

Simplicity Rotary Cutting Machine

The dandy little machine was purchased last fall at one of the Textile Center's sales for less than $10. I found out that the widest setting is exactly 2.5", perfect for the jelly roll rugs. It takes practice to hold the fabric steady so my strips weren't as precise as when using a hand held rotary cutter on a mat, but it was fast and good enough. I sewed all of the strips together and sat down to sew then up on an industrial Singer 31-15. That didn't go very well with much puckering and struggling to keep it straight. I needed a walking foot but that doesn't really exist for industrials since they would simply use a walking foot machine, not a different presser foot. Here I was, all ready to sew, without a walking foot machine.

Strips sewing together but need to add the strip of batting

Then it dawned on me: use a Pfaff with the IDT, their version of a built in walking foot. I pull out my Pfaff 1222, set it up on the kitchen table, and get to sewing:

Here's 50 yards of tubing for a rug

Would the Pfaff 1222 also be able to sew the strips together with a zigzag? Let's hope so. I added a plexiglass table for a larger work surface and found that to be very helpful.

Pfaff 1222 with extension table

Other suggestions were to press after a few rows and that was good advice, too. In the end, it turned out to my satisfaction and now resides at the porch exterior door:

My version of a jelly roll rug

This worked out so well I found/dug out a braided rug I was working on but could no longer use the Bernina 217 industrial due to a cracked needle plate. The Pfaff 1222 can sew up those braids, too!

Waiting in the laundry room with 2 more rows to sew

I'm not sure if this is going to end up in the camper or in the garage, but it has been an experiment.

With all of the interest in the Brother sewing machine these past two weeks keeping me busy, I had one machine returned. That's not quite right: it wasn't returned but given back when it was no longer needed. I wrote about it in Maintaining Good Will back in 2018, this interesting Singer Quantum CXL. The alphabet stitches were used to write the name of a nursing home resident right on his clothes, not a tag, so they would not get mixed up with others in the laundry. Sadly, the resident died and the machine was just sitting around so it was given back to me. It's a fine machine with much life left in it but no long can stitch in a multi-directional mode: I think the step motor is dying. I hope I can find a buyer who doesn't care about those stitches since it is still working fine for all of the other stitches. It even has a cut thread feature and a needle threader. There is a sewing machine for everyone!

Next up: ready for winter mittens? I can sew up a pair for you!

Getting Creative

 With the best of intentions, I brought home a bag of "minky" scraps that were from a production of pillowcases. The factory cut the pillowcase fabric to size and it left long runs of 13" wide fabric. While I was working on an industrial sewing machine at Ellie's house last winter, she was cleaning up and asked if I wanted to take some of the scraps home to play around with. She packed up a bag with four colors of this fabric that reminds me less of minky and more like velour knit, reminiscent of velour shirts that were popular in the 1970's. During the early months of staying home last spring I pulled out the bag of scraps and decided to make up a quilt using a chevron pattern. What is mess! Every fresh cut edge made a whirlwind of fluff that sticks to everything: scissors, fabric, clothing, hands, machines, tables. I managed a few rows and then had to walk away from this project. Last week I found the bag of pieces and decided to either finish it up or throw it away.

I was now in a better frame of mind to tackle this type of fabric so I tried a few tricks others have suggested. Once cut, toss the pieces in the dryer to get the fluff off the edges. Use a sticky roller to keep fluff contained. Use a lint brush, the type that has a nap for using in only one direction (this seemed to work the best for me). Keep the vacuum cleaner nearby. Since I was almost half way done with the quilt top, I worked on it first but didn't know what size I cut the pieces. I measured and cut but they were too small but then decided since this is really a knit fabric I needed to allow extra for that flexibility. Here's how it started:

How many rows can I get away with?

Taking seams out so the points were more accurate  was painful since I was using an elastic zigzag stitch but I tried to correct as many as I could but some were better than others. Which machine did I use? This called for a Pfaff with the IDT, their built in walking foot system.

Pfaff 125?

This is such a great machine! Easy to use, comes with a full set of accessories and a flip up top with a nice sewing guide. It made the whole process easier but I have to confess I set it up on a TV tray in the family room so I would have room to place the strips on the floor and then sew on the larger piece with a machine close by. This took a couple of days and finally my husband asked how long was I going to invade every room in the house. Checking to see how much of these two colors I had left, I concluded I only had enough to make a throw sized quilt so I wrapped things up by adding a border and backing it with green flannel. I stitched around the outer edge with a serpentine stitch and then stitched in the ditch on two interior rows just to stabilize:

Chevron throw with velour fabric

I still had purple and light cream fabric strips left and I didn't have the heart to try another throw so I ended up making bears:

Howdy, folks

Using three of the strips, I made up six bears. They were a bit fussy but not as bad with shedding due to my use of lint rollers and brushes. Then I made up six more:

Just me and my friends

using the cream fabric, too. I still had more fabric but couldn't make myself sew any more bears so I decided to try to make a dress for my granddaughter Evelyn. In the process of moving pieces around I accidentally cut the opening for the zipper down the front of the dress instead of the back. I decided to make it look intentional by adding a decorative stitch by using silver thread with a satin stitch:

Making a mistake look good: silver zigzag

Using my trusty Bernina 730, some stitches still needed to be removed and corrected since it was right on the front but it still turned out cute. Never one to leave anything alone, I added a snowflake to the front

Snowflake number one

But it wasn't centered. Checking back with the instructions for the Singer Futura XL400 I was using to embroider, I needed to move the snowflake and then hit "apply" for it to actually stitch where you want it to go. Trying again, I added another snowflake to balance it out

Snowflakes 1 and 2

And now it was done. I washed it up since there was stabilizer on the front that needed to be washed out and it turned out nice. 

Never one to leave anything alone (where have I heard that one before?) I went back to the bag of scraps and had just enough left to make one much smaller bear

Mister tiny purple bear in the front

for Evelyn to carry around with her. There's a small piece left from when I was testing out the first snowflake that I'll whip up into a sleeping bag of sorts because he's going to be very tired after being carried around all day.

Oh, the fun sewing grandma's can have!

Convertables

 Trying my best to balance crafting with sewing machine repair, crafting has won these past weeks because of Christmas. Back in the early fall, I decided I could knit each grandkid a pair of slippers. Knowing I could have up to eleven pairs to knit, you would think I would have started right away but that's not how this project launched. It wasn't until mid-November that I got serious and even then had several false starts. At first I wanted to make slippers that looked like animals but only one pair was made, green frogs, when I decided I really wanted to make a bootie type of slipper. I also wanted to add a leather sole but with the a non-slip feature so I used the backside of leather since it is a bit rough. At the last minute I got a request to add a name to an apron for a friends granddaughter and it was so easy on the Singer Futura XL-400 I decided to make a bag for each pair of slippers with the intended child's name embroidered on the bag:

Bags matched up with slippers (pink slippers in the middle are for a 14 month old so no bag)

Instant gift wrap! Not exactly instant but with just hooping the fabric, typing in their name on a laptop connected with the embroidery machine, it was only 10 minutes of stitching. I lined each bag, added buttonholes for the drawstring, and they were done. Here's a closeup of three of the bags to the oldest girls:

Bags that can hold something else after Christmas

I'll do this again since it was fairly easy and gives a bit of a thrill to have a bag with your name on it. I continue to find ways to use the embroidery machines and find I'm happily embroidering on that Singer Futura XL400!

As I continue to work on selling sewing machines, I finally bought a unit that will convert a motor using European 220V to our US 110. Over a year ago, at the last in-person River Rats TOGA, I bought a Husqvarna CB-N, one of the many sewing machines from Cindy Peter's estate. It's a handsome model in an interesting base.

Husqvarna CB-N

Take a look a how the knee lever engages the motor:

As the knee lever is inserted into the machine, it engages the lever you see above on the floor of the wood base. As you push the lever with your knee it in turn connects with the lever you see circled  in the above photo. Here is a closeup of that area:

The wire on the right side feeds up to a switch box that causes the motor to engage and run:

Small wire comes up from the base to connect to a switch

With a system like this I didn't want to take the original motor off and just add a modern motor. In comes a step up/step down transformer. On one side we chose the intended target voltage

Moveable pin circled in yellow, set for 110V

With the European plug that came with the Husqvarna CB-N

It was plugged into the opposite side of the transformer:

into output 220V. This all seems backwards to me but my husband and I read over the instructions several times and recalled our electrician son-in-law explaining the process as backwards. The transformer was plugged into a power strip with surge protection, recommended, the unit was turned on, and the light didn't even turn on. What happened? I inserted the knee lever and with a fair amount of push it engaged the motor and she ran! As it turns out, the light bulb is broken so I'm going to take it to a battery and bulb supply shop and see if they have 220V bulbs of this size. 

I did some practice sewing and it works just fine. The presser foot is really high up from the base of the machine but it does come right down on the feed dogs. It should take a whole lot of layers of fabric but I've only tried it with a size 16 needle and four layers of medium weight upholstery. It would sew but wasn't very happy so I'm going to try other samples and needles to test out its strength. It uses standard needles and low shank feet plus a free manual in English was found. Now I can see what was included with the original machine and I can search in my stash of presser feet for the right ones.

Why did this take so long for me to get this sewing machine up and running? The voltage transformer box just scared me! Did I need a step up or a step down transformer? What about watts? Can I just use a simple plug converter? This is where being a librarian comes into play: I love to research so I read up on why I would need a transformer unit and not just a plug end, what size I needed, and if I needed step up or down. Because I'm not an electrician, I consulted with the family expert first so I would be safe and not burn the motor out. It seems to be overkill but better safe than sorry. I will sell this machine with the transformer and it can easily sit on the floor next to the power strip so you do not have to make room for it on the table top with the sewing machine. It was a worthwhile adventure and I'm hoping there is someone in the Twin Cities who would like this somewhat different sewing machine. Let's hope so/sew!