The Girl Next Door

 Winter is here in the frozen north, even if they think we might have a few 50 degree days ahead. The snow pack is very real and now we hunker down and get sewing! I need to get a few more sewing machines listed for sale so everyone has a greater choice of models but I've been sewing and quilting and even with retirement there are only 24 hours in a day.

Back when I had 3-4 cabinet sewing machines in the garage, I sold a Singer 15-125 and received a Singer 66 as part of the deal. Why was it going out the door? It just wasn't used anymore and the table had a few dings in it. I finally got around to checking it out when we had a whole week of warm weather

Singer 66 table top

only to find a large chip on the front and a nifty piece missing on the top surface.  Above you can see the general flaking of the finish so it was going to need a complete stripping of the finish. I rarely deal with veneer problems but this one begged to be fixed:

Chip

 

A close up shows the degree of damage. Using a piece of the veneer from the front I cut and pieced it in:

Veneer glued down

It doesn't look too great at this point but when wood filler and stain were added it ended up looking pretty normal

Finished top

With a chunk of the veneer missing from the front, I chipped it all off, sanded it down and left it lighter than the original finish for a completely new look:

Two tone finish

What about the machine inside? It's a beauty, a classic Singer 66 in excellent shape:

Classic Singer 66 in her refinished table

I love a Singer 66, so basic yet so reliable. I think of it as "the boy or girl next door" who is always there and smiling, underappreciated, until someone realizes the beauty within:

Singer 66: where's that chipped piece?

Quilting has been taking up my time as I've been working on a quilt for a friend. It was an easy pattern and quick to put together:

Pieced blocks in one arrangement

Above is one version of the arrangement of blocks but I found I needed to even things out so instead of 42 blocks I ended up with 48 blocks. Right now I'm quilting it with various free motion patterns and writing. When it is all done I'll show you some of the features of this one but, for now, it needs to remain a bit hidden. A nifty surprise was finding 109" wide fabric for backing at Hobby Lobby. I only needed around 2 yards, it wasn't on sale so I could use my 40% off coupon for a real deal of only $15 for the backing. Saving my judgement until after washing, it came through the laundry just fine but did shrink. I'll need to buy a little extra next time. 

I better get those machines ready for sale because the weather calls for sewing, sewing, sewing!

Getting Ready and Making Do

It's been a great week of warm weather but we know it won't last so I've been getting the last of the cabinets finished up and posted for sale. The garage needs to be cleared out to get both cars in before snow arrives and in Minnesota that means November. Here's my latest adventure with cabinets and their machines. 

A few weeks ago I had refinished one of my favorite cabinets that I wrote about in Singer Restored Plus a Garage Sale and I no more than sold it and I bought another one. It's all refinished now but there is a problem with the cabinet when I switched sewing machines. It came with a Singer 500 that is very nice but not really the right machine for a cabinet of this era. Doesn't this table look like a treadle but without the treadle mechanism?

School Desk table

When refinished I wanted to put a Singer 15-91 into it but there was a problem: a gap between the machine and the edge of the cabinet. Usually there is a metal plate and spring mechanism installed but this one did not have that nifty addition. I even have one in my stash of parts but it didn't fit the opening correctly. What's a body to do about that? First we went to Walmart and, using measurements, combed the aisles looking for a storage compartment that would fit. You have to give my husband credit for helping me in the search but we didn't find a good container. Back home I search my own collection of boxes without finding anything. Then I thought about how I have made up paper boxes so I looked at my stash of mailing supplies and found a box that was close in size. I could cut it down and reshape it to fit

Box in the making

I covered it with wood grain Duck Tape and set it into place

Box to fill in the gap

It is held in place by the front lip which only holds it in place until the machine is folded down but there are 4 drawers for holding supplies and one can be for this box. This is not a perfect solution but seems like a viable alternative to a gaping hole. The new owner can either use it or toss it away.

Singer 15-91 with box in place

The Singer 15-91 in the table is in nearly mint condition with excellent decals and finish. Someone is going to get a real showpiece.

Singer 15-91 in school desk table

I love the classic look of the post-treadle cabinet/table with a traditional black Singer sewing machine. Who wouldn't want to sit down and sew with this beauty?

I've been busy sewing up clothes for my 8 year old granddaughter, Emma, who requested a jumpsuit. Using a vintage pattern from the '60's

Butterick 4919

I made up a short version in a nice knit that she loved but she requested one longer so I made up an orange version that she picked out!

Butterick 4919 in longer length

It was way too plain for me so we dressed it up with leaf buttons

 Jumpsuit with button trim and leaf zipper pull

and a zipper pull with one more red leaf. She loved the zipper pull on the last one, just a circle of the fabric stitched down, so this one also gets a cool zipper pull. Another shirt was finished up and now grandma is finished making clothes for Emma for a little while. It's fun that she still likes this effort of mine but she's a bit fussy so it might not last long. I'll take what I can get besides there are plenty of other grandchildren to sew and knit for; the joys of a big family!

Friends

Many times I have enjoyed the generosity of friends and this post is about one of them. Deb and I met when she came to a sewing machine class I taught at a community center. Full of enthusiasm and patience, she brought her teenage daughter along, too, so they could sew together. Sometimes teenage daughters aren't as loving as they should be but Deb was wonderful, not saying too much and stepping back when needed. By the end of class her daughter was laughing and enjoying her new skills: maybe mom wasn't so dumb after all! Deb and I kept in touch a bit but when I got an email from her this spring I was blown away: she had several sewing machines she wanted to give away and would I like them? Of course I would so we arranged a time, put on masks and gloves, and unloaded her trunk:

Portable Models

Fleetwood Deluxe in table

I've been working on them and by now they all in working order and ready for sale. First up is the Brother with red trim:

Brother VX-1010

I've had a few like this before so all it needed was a cleaning and adjustment. It came without the storage compartment but I had one that almost fit. I could finagle it into place but it needed a rubber band to hold it there; not ideal but it worked. It's a good starter sewing machine.

Next up is a Singer 538. I kept her hidden because I knew there was going to be a bit of trouble with this one and I was right: upon turning the handwheel I could hear a crunch. That's never a good sign so I opened it up to find out two of four gears just fell apart. I ordered a new set, replaced another one, and now just need to settle in and get that job done. Another nice beginner's sewing machine.

The Riccar was another good machine that only needed some cleaning up:

Riccar RZ-208B

Another good strong sewing machine with straight and zigzag stitches. I have a couple men in mind for this one.

Then there is a blue Universal, another good machine that needs to be babied a bit: even after many adjustments you still need to give the beginning stitches an encouragement by moving the handwheel to get going:

Universal

This one went out as a loner while their machine was in the shop and we were all frantically sewing masks. It was returned, never needing to be used after all. All in all, a clean machine with a good variety of stitches.

I'm saving my joy for the Kenmore 385-1950280, a machine I was familiar with since I had one years ago. The first one needed a foot control and it was a very different type so was expensive. I got it anyway only to discover there was another bigger problem with the machine so it went to parts. When Deb brought this one and apologized for the missing foot control I told her I was pretty sure I already had one. Isn't it amazing how we recall our failures with such clarity? Sure enough, same model, still had that foot control set and she was up and humming:

Kenmore 385-1950280

And finally, the Fleetwood Deluxe, a table model that was just too swanky to resist. After a cleaning and adjustment, the table needed refreshing and that's when I noticed the cord set was full of exposed wires.  After several attempts to install a safer knee control, it's finally done:

Fleetwood

Stradivario cabinet

One of the knobs on the front of the Stradivario cabinet was missing so I had to replace all three with wood knobs but they look okay in the end. She runs quiet and smooth and will be a great addition to someone's home. I love the "fins" on this one!

Ready for cruisin' with these fins

Now I have them all up to speed and ready to sell; while I was still working outside the home (although with COVID19 we were working from home) this just took too long to do. It's my hope to speed up this repair process and get more done but not until I have cataracts removed in the coming week. At that time I will be officially retired, vision restored, rested up from a week of sitting around, and ready to, at least, sew again. A big thanks to Deb for her contribution of projects that will be sold reasonably to deserving souls. Then I can say "let the quilting begin!" as I get back to what I love to do (besides repairing sewing machines).

Treasure Chest

Keeping everything organized so you can find what you need when you need it is one of the pillars of time management. I don't know what the other pillars are since I just made that up but doesn't it sound logical? In my quest to stay organized, I've had various bins, shelves, and systems but each one has failed to hold enough and a few of them collapsed under the stress I've put on them. I started to look for more serious systems and found those mechanics tool chests to be about right for my needs. Then I checked on quality and price and had to take a step back. I couldn't afford Snap-On systems that resell at thousands of dollars:

Snap-on rolling cart

because I still needed one of the top compartments, too, for a full combination set. They also come in blue and black but couldn't get excited about them. I considered Ironton

Ironton tool chest

thinking I might be able to use a coupon and get a better price so this was my new hope. I checked out my local Craigslist but they were all either beat up or over a thousand dollars and then I found someone who was selling his Grizzly mechanics cabinet:

Now we were talking business! He had outgrown his ten year old cabinet so was selling at half price, still a good deal even with wear and tear on it. I got myself over to his shop where his wife and I got it into my Jeep. Even with all of the drawers out it was heavy but we managed to get it down into the basement and into place:

Grizzly rolling cabinet base with tool chest on top

Isn't it beautiful? I vacuumed it out and cleaned with a wood furniture cleaner and found few bumps and bruises. Even though it's only 26" wide it is tall but it took quite a while for me to figure out if everything was going to fit:

Grizzly cabinet stocked with my tools and supplies

Of course, not everything was going to get into this baby so a few executive decisions were made and I called it a day. Wow, oh wow: this was going to work! It's about 18 inches deep so takes up less space than the wire rack bins I had in that space and it actually looks more spacious now. I'm pretty happy with my purchase: fits in designated space, stores almost all supplies, more than functional it actually looks good.

Sometimes it's about the sewing machines and sometimes it's all about the items that keep this business going. Next up with be a post about those sewing machines I bought from Erin and what I'm doing with them (it's all good so far!). In the meantime, keep sewing and keep organized.

Getting Organized

Craft fair season is approaching and I need to replenish several of my regular items, such as the hot mitts, and then generate a few new items to keep things fresh for my past customers and interesting for me, too. Before I started digging through fabrics I thought I needed to finish up some organization projects. We bought a 48 drawer unit off of Craigslist to store the sewing machine repair parts. This was an older hand-made item that had been painted at least twice, labels taped and re-taped in various positions on the drawers so I decided to start over:

Cabinet framework

This thing took up a whole bunch of space in our garage and we are getting ready for a garage sale so I was on a push to get it done and relocated to my basement workroom. All of the drawers came out, label and knob hardware removed, cleaned, holes filled and sanded. Choosing the paint color and drawer hardware was agonizing because I was only going to do this once so I better like it! Looking online for drawer pulls that would have a place for a label was a bit tricky: too big? too small? too pricey? color? I finally made up a few paper templates to see if they were in proportion to the drawers and then ordered 48 from China. This was supposed to take three weeks but they were here in about 10 days and by then I was done with all of the painting:

48 drawers with new paint

I decided to prime with Kilz so there would be no bleed through of old marks or things that only got sanded down but not off. Then they got three coats of paint because once this was in place it wasn't going to get painted again.

Adding the pulls was going to be tedious and I wanted them to be even so I made up a template to use on each one:

Outline of hardware

Red dots for screw placement

Hardware in place and screwed down

And repeat for all 48 drawers. Yes, it was tedious but the end result was excellent:

Ready for the basement

All of the drawers came back out and we put the framework on a two wheeled cart to carefully move down the steps. We went really slow with only a bit of the paint chipping off the bottom edge that I can just touch up with extra paint. So how was this going to sit on the floor? We decided to put down a cushion so the wood wasn't directly on the floor, cutting up an old bath mat:

Pieces of rubber mat were sewn together

I hope this doesn't turn out to be a nightmare if we get water in the basement, but there's always a downside to any decision. Cabinet in place, drawers were organized and filled over several days, and then I made up the labels:

Labels made in MSWord

I just made up a three column table in MSWord, practiced with font size, and filled in the correct names. I also needed a master list so I don't have to peer at the labels down in the back corner. There were three boxes of things that were too large to fit in the drawers so they are going to sit on top but not until that paint has a few months to cure. All in all, it's been a relief to have gone through everything, throwing out some broken parts, put like items together, and lighten the load on a few other places where I had miscellaneous parts.

This organization isn't going to make me a better technician but it will save me time and money when I don't have to search for items in three places and buy something I already own. At the end of the day I just have to say: anyone want a sewing machine motor? I think I've got a dozen.

Swapping Out

I was given a very nice Kenmore 54 as part of a give away from Marilyn in Stormy Weather. Her daughter got a good Viking sewing machine and a serger and she sent back a Kenmore 54 and a Modern 139 ZigZag sewing machine just to get rid of them. Of course, I cleaned them all up and got them ready for their next home but the Kenmore was really made for a cabinet since it was so heavy and came with a knee control, not a foot control. I seem to be shy of the right foot controls just now so I decided I would see if I could get a cabinet/table for this hefty gal. This is easier said than done because Kenmore doesn't talk Singer: the cut-outs for their machines are usually sharp, squared cornered and Singers are rounded. They are not interchangeable at all! The hunt was on but I had to wait several weeks before I found one that not only would fit but was in my price range (cheap, cheap, cheap!). We took a Sunday drive and came home with:

Kenmore cabinet model #1173101 with set of drawers

Not only a nice table but a working sewing machine and set of drawers, too. Before I left the gentleman's home who was selling it, he removed the head of the Kenmore 117-591 and I slipped in the Kenmore 54 to find out it was going to be a good fit and it was perfect. Once we got home I could see the plug ends better and found out I could use the very nice set of controls that were already in the cabinet. This was turning out better and better! The table was in pretty good condition and was solid hardwood, possibly maple, and only needed to be cleaned up.

Kenmore 54 in place

The set of drawers was another matter but I'm thinking they should clean up pretty good, too, and would be a nice addition to this table but would work in any sewing space. There's a large bottom drawer with metal glides, middle drawer with four compartments, and the top drawer has spool pins in the front half:

But...the top needs some refinishing:

With flat surfaces it should be easy, though. Here's the top of the table next to the drawers:

But what about the Kenmore 117-591 that was pulled out of the table?

Kenmore 117-591

 It's never been one of my favorite sewing machines and this one has sat too long with the motor pulley in the same place so now it has a pretty good flat spot on it. I can replace it, I have the controls and power cords from the Kenmore 54 that aren't being used, so maybe someone would be interested in buying this one for very little investment? Now I feel guilty selling a sewing machine that isn't quite functional without a cabinet yet only has a knee control. Yup, I'm still looking for another Kenmore cabinet! Even though this turned out good for the Kenmore 54, I might just see if I can find an interested buyer for the 117-591. It came with all of the attachments and ven a printed manual. I think I should scan that before I let it leave my house. This is a nice dilemma to have but it's not getting me to the goal of fewer sewing machines is it?

Such is the life of this Sewing Machine Mavin.

More Brotherly Love

I'm just a sucker for the Brother Select-o-Matic sewing machine. I also have a soft spot for the compact cabinets that have a chair that fits into the cabinet so it looks like a large decorative box but hides not only a chair inside but a sewing machine, too. When those two worlds collide we have one very, very happy Sewing Machine Mavin. That's my story for today.

Once again, Goodwill Auction online had a vintage Brother sewing machine that looked a lot like the Select-o-Matic. It does, and it doesn't but it's probably close enough:

My newest Brother: no name

Brother Select-O-Matics

To make it even better, it came in a very cool cabinet so it was local pick-up only and TA DA it was in Minnesota where they know my name at the auction pick-up site. Nichole and I are practically friends I've been there so often. Yes, I won the bid for a disgustingly small price and went to pick it up last week. Beside a bit of cleaning, alright maybe a lot of cleaning, it stitched okay but not great. I had to employ one of my best techniques: walk away and come back later. It's surprising how well that works. Most of the time it just takes time for the oil to sink in and get things moving but it also can keep you from doing something foolish like turning a screw too hard and stripping it. This time overnight worked best as well as letting the machine run continuously for 5-10 minutes.

Brother stitch sample, mostly practice

 Finally ready to put the machine back in the cabinet, I went out to the garage to see what it needed: nothing! It was in great shape so only needed cleaning so I use a cabinet cleaner that gets off the dirt and leaves a nice clean surface with a touch of shine when you buff. Upon closer inspection I could see that the knee control had to have the wiring replaced but I knew I already had several controls with motor blocks that were made for cabinets. Why not just swap them out? That proved to be a good idea even if I did need to replace plugs and mount with new holes inside the cabinet. It looks great, much safer, and used a known product that I was just keeping for future use.

Brother in compact cabinet

Then I looked at the seat and noticed ... it didn't have a seat, just the chair without a top to sit on, cushioned or not. I'm going to have to make a seat myself and that's not easy for me since I'm a wood refinisher, not builder.  Taking a look at other cabinets I find I currently do not have another one to look at so will have to go from memory.

Pull-out chair but no seat (yet)

This isn't going to be cheap, either with a couple pieces of wood, edging, block of foam and then fabric. Okay, so maybe only $20 but that just goes to show you how expensive a bargain can be some times. It also needs a full set of accessories in a box plus a manual. I think I can use the same scanned Brother Select-o-Matic manual but it's not quite the same:

Brother No-Name

Brother Select-o-Matic

The knobs and dials all function the same but are labeled differently. All in all, it's still a very good vintage sewing machine that runs quietly and will be a gem in someone's collection. This is not a model for a newbie because of the whole dial set-up but it is very doable for someone who loves vintage and loves to sew. Be still my heart, I cannot have another one in my collection!