Boxes

After a long winter of working indoors, the weather has turned warm enough for my woodworking associate to produce some wood boxes for my sewing machines. What would I need wood boxes for? Since so many of the machines I find have no base or it is beyond repair, I want/need to have something to hold them. Sometimes I can do a decent repair job with glue and nails but other times they just need to be tossed:

Wizard base broken in shipment

Through Craigslist Ashley comes to my rescue with her posting about doing woodworking projects. She has some nice photos so I get in touch and when she can get out in her garage again she makes up these gems:

Two sizes in two styles

As requested, she made some out of oak and some out of poplar, both very sturdy woods that will stand up to wear and tear. The corners are rounded and very smooth, have corner wedges to support a base, small indents on the short sides for a handhold (a finger grip?), a cutout for electric cords, and a wood bottom, too. There are two styles: just big enough for the machine to sit on and some with   storage compartment on the side to hold accessories or an electric foot control.

Plain base in front, base with side compartment in back

And then there are two sizes: Singer 99 small base and larger size for all of the Singer 15's, 201's, and 15 type machines and others like the Brother Select-o-Matic that I'm in love with (sorry, not pictured yet):

Singer 99 in front with small size box, Singer 15-91 behind it with the larger size

I haven't done anything but  admire them but will probably stain a few and even paint at least one in black but most of them will be left unadorned for the buyer to finish as they would like. Now I can list a few more sewing machines that were just waiting around for a nice wood box to support them. Not everyone wants a table and with boxes that are decades old and broken this was a necessity but necessary or not, they are just beautiful! Ashley did a very nice job but good work doesn't come cheap. Could I learn to do something like this one day? I sure hope so because there's a woodworking class that is locally taught and I hope to get signed up next winter. It might take a long time to get up to this skill level but it would be a great goal for me.

In the meantime, I'm going to be calling on Ashley!

The Two Steves

I have a cute little aqua Sewmor for sale right now that has gotten some nice attention but, so far, no sale. I get these texts and emails "Is it still available?" and, of course, it is, because I'm usually deleting an ad as the buyer is backing down the driveway. Then I get an email from Steve who, surprise-surprise, wants to use it for heavy vinyl. I write back suggesting he bring what he intends to sew with him to try it out and he agrees it's a good idea. We go back and forth for ten messages trying to get a visit set up...and he drops out of the conversation. Poor little Sewmor is still waiting to find its forever home:

Sewmor

 At the same time I get a series of questions from a different Steve about a Singer 201. Now, I like an informed buyer because they know what to look for and what they want. Besides, I'm not trying to pull a fast one by trying to dump a poor machine off on anyone. Alright, there are a few sewing machines that I'm glad to see walk out the door but I have warned many buyers that what they are purchasing is not a great machine but it can do the job and a great machine is going to cost about four times as much. You get what you pay for!

Steve's conversation goes like this:
I’ll take it. Has the grease been changed and new brushes installed in the motor? 
Are the wicks new or original 50 years old in the machine?

What type of motor is on the machine?

And drive mechanism?

I answer each question truthfully but start to think this guy knows as much as I do and his questions are pretty specific. Not bad questions but if you need to know all of this about a 60 year old machine, you probably have another agenda in mind. Then I get this response:

 

Good Answer…. Now wires to field coil tend to get brittle, crack and need replacement have you done so?

And now I get a little steamed up, thinking he is questioning my ability to restore a sewing machine but go to bed and try to figure out how to answer this one. The next morning I write back that since he knows quite a bit about motors maybe he should buy the Singer 15-91 that's being offered in the area for only $30 and he could take it apart and get it all cleaned up with the satisfaction in having done the job himself. 

His final reply: 

OK I will no offense your machine is at a good price most listed on Craigslist need work you are the exception.

Nice to converse with someone that actually knows there stuff.

And with that goodbye I can see that he has wasted my time with many questions and no intent to buy this Singer 201:

Singer 201

She is also waiting for her forever home. But that's okay because a great sewing machine like this one will find a home and it's worth waiting for.

I'm really into my big clean-up, trying to sell down my sewing machines so I can actually work in my sewing room. One machine at a time, they are leaving the house and I'm trying very, very hard not to buy any more but this is quite difficult to do. Discipline. Patience (with myself when I backslide). Vision: I have a vision of a cleaner room and that drives me much of the time. Cleaner room equals new carpet! I have a vision alright!

Next up will be a conversation about a Pfaff that finally came home ... but that's another post. Stay tuned!
 

 

Getting Prepared

I've been sewing up a storm this last week making swimsuits for my 5 year old granddaughter and having a lot of fun designing each one so it would be a little different. Using a great KwikSew 3785 pattern for a racer-back suit, it was just like one I used to make her mom's swimsuits some 30 years ago. At the stage of getting 4 all sewn up I made a visit to my doctor to complain about a bout with a painful elbow, golfer's elbow to be exact. Fifteen years ago I used a piece of workout equipment improperly and got tennis elbow that took a year of rest with a brace, exercises, and cortisone shots before it went away. This time it was on the underside of my elbow and has been flaring up when I knit and carry anything heavy. It's not all knitting and not every sewing machine but it seems to be the right combination of events that brings it on. After a cortisone shot, I went home with a nifty brace:

It's just me and my brace: ain't she cute?

The brace keeps me from twisting my arm, one of the more painful movements, so it can actually rest. After only a few days of wearing it my arm does feel better but it has put a considerable crimp in my activities. Like sewing.

So Emma was only going to get 4 swimsuits, not six (she loves to wear them every day in the summer). But I just had to try one last suit so I cut it out, sewed up the seams on the serger, and finished up with the elastic on my Viking #1. Cutting, or using scissors of any kind, is difficult, but the sewing was fine until I had to stretch the elastic. All in all, they turned out cute:

Bottoms up!

The pattern called for a fully lined front, a very nice touch. Here they are so you can see the different neckline finishes:

One has buttons, one has rosebud stitches, two have elastic zigzag stitch, and one is straight stretch stitch. My Kenmore never liked sewing elastic, especially on knits, but the Viking #1 was a champ, sewing all of the layers with relative ease. This was a keeper pattern.

Emma came over this afternoon after a trip to Como Zoo and she was a little speechless but did try one swimsuit on and didn't take it off when she went home. See? She loves to wear swimsuits!

I did manage to mow my yard with a break between front and back so by now my arms are tired and typing isn't the best of activities for my elbow. Yup, growing old isn't for sissies but I'm glad I'm feeling results from the inconvenience of wearing a brace. My posts might be shorter but there's still much happening in Sewing Machine Mavin's life: next up, the story of the two Steve's.

Annual Outing

This was the weekend of the Textile Center Garage Sale and if you have been reading my blog for any length of time you know this is one of the highlights of my sewing year. I volunteered on Thursday  and this year I signed up to help sort books. Since I'm a librarian I figured I could handle the job but when I got there it seemed most of the work was already done. There were far more books than any other year, covering about 40 feet in length and five shelves tall. Once the last of the boxes of books were opened we went on to boxes of booklet types, the kind where in several pages they show you how to applique cats onto sweatshirts and other gems. Someone had donated boxes and boxes of plastic sleeves that held their collection of patterns gleaned from various magazines. They were in good shape, organized, and had been stored in three ring binders but there were hundreds of them. The woman who was sorting them with me said she was going home to look at her collection of patterns and try to assess how many she could realistically use over the next years and then dump the rest. I heartily agreed because I don't want my children to have to wade through all of my "collection" like we had just done.

Saturday dawned bright, clear, and warm so my daughter Kelly and I got ourselves together for this annual feast of fabric, yarn, and so much more. I'm not sure if it was sorting through all of those plastic sleeves two days before or if the closeout of Hancock Fabrics had everyone full, but there was quite a bit less fabric than usual but much more yarn. Patterns and magazines were okay but we both struggled to find ten or twenty (they are 10 for $1). Here was my modest haul:

More dots, book print, and swimsuit fabric

There were some accessory types of items:

Patterns, yarn in a bag (only wanted the cotton), woolly nylon serger thread

and even a slant shank walking foot:

Low shank slant needle walking foot: doesn't fit Singer 401's

On our way back to the car they had several bins of free fabric but you had to look pretty hard. There were some nice scraps of a denim with Lycra that I thought I could make leggings for my granddaughter. We kept digging and digging until we had a whole bag full! Here's my free stuff:

Denim, muslin, gold coated fabric

Who knows where these projects might end up? Once we got back to the car and determined we would have to wait another hour for the bag sale, we looked at each other and said "Let's go home and do yard work!" And we did.

It was a beautiful day, we had several hours together, we each knew how overstocked we already were with fabric and yarn we might not use so could walk away this time. It could have been a combination of things that kept us from returning but a sign of health when we recognized we didn't need to keep buying but now needed to get sewing. Or knitting. Or repairing sewing machines.

Sewing Machines! I almost forgot to tell you the big change in their sewing machine sales this year at the TCGS. In the past they had a silent auction for all kinds of bigger items from looms to sewing machines but this year everything was priced to sell. Prices were pretty low and a wide variety of machines, all with notes about condition. I could not resist a New Home XL-II with a note "needs work" because I had one of these that was such a gem and wrote about in A New Home for a New Home . I had the repair manual and if it needed a new feed dog gear I was ready! Here's the best part: it was only $5. I brought it home and found out the handwheel wasn't moving so I took out the needle, no movement, the bobbin case, no movement, the hook and its parts, and that's when my husband said from across the room "Look at all of the thread in there." Sure enough, thread was clogging up the works and when it was cleaned out the handwheel moved just fine. I plugged it in and away she ran.

Second time around: another New Home XL-II

More cleaning and oiling, taking the bottom off to clean and oil, there was nothing wrong with this machine! It has wonderful storage for the presser feet but this one did not come with any extras and that's too bad. My other sets of snap on feet don't fit in the top storage compartment and I would love for this machine to have a nice set like my previous one did:

Previous New Home XL-II with a full set of snap-on feet

A very complete set that I'm now coveting. I would also like an instruction manual but don't think that's going to be free but maybe I could spring for a new one since I got the machine at such a deal.

Moral of the story: you never know what is going to show up at these sales. It's garage sale season, folks, so do not despair because there's a vintage sewing machine out there with your name on it. You just need to find it. It's a quest. I know you can do it. Please report back to headquarters when you are successful. Signing off, it's your Sewing Machine Mavin.

Dueling Sergers

I love a happy ending, don't you? I've learned in repairing old sewing machines that patience is not only a virtue, it is absolutely necessary if you are going to learn anything without breaking it first. Today's story is about a serger that I've had since August 2015, bought at a neighborhood garage sale:

Simplicity Easy Lock 800

It's fairly small but all metal so heavy and I like sergers this way: they don't jump all around at high speed and isn't that how many of us run our sergers? As it turns out, there is a tiny metal prong that is called a chaining tongue, needed for the formation of the typical interlocking of a three thread stitch. Here's how it's supposed to look:

Arrow points to the chaining tongue

Don't blink or you will miss it, it's that tiny. When needed it is pushed up into place by a lever and then pulled back when making a rolled hem. That seems easy enough but I found out it's so tiny and rather delicate and very easy to break. In fact, I broke three of them! By the time the third one broke I just said "Forget it: I'll just use it for rolled hems" because it make a nearly perfect rolled hem.

But that bugged me. I shouldn't have to keep it in the back, only to come out for a rolled hem. And then one came up on Goodwill Online auction and I got it. It's always my hope that I'll be able to fix something when there is a fully functioning one by its side. I ordered a new chaining tongue and then set them up:

Simplicity Easy Lock 800 side by side

It worked! As I could explore the newer, functioning model I could see how it was supposed to look. I had taken the whole lever and tongue off the machine and it was difficult to see how it would slide in:

Red arrow is on top of the lever

You have to position in just so, without the tongue screwed on, keep in in place while you got the tiny tongue screwed on with a nut on the backside...only to do it several times until I got it right. I have to admit, I'm not too crazy about pulling the lever back down due to breaking it so many times before but I think it's in there pretty good and if I'm careful it just might work. Whew!!!!

Now I have two cute little Simplicity Easy Lock 800 sergers, both with print manual and extra DC-1 needles in handy tote bags. I'm not too worried because they run well, compact, and will be price significantly lower than a new serger. I'm pleased with my efforts even if I did have to buy a spare serger to get it right.

For all you local readers, this is the big weekend for the Textile Center Garage Sale. I already volunteered yesterday, sorting books and magazines. There seemed to be a rather large number of them this year and I got to buy after my shift was over. Stay tuned to my next post where it's show-and-tell with all of the goodies!

It's All In The Timing

Excited about my Viking 12-1, I dug in and cleaned it, freed up the frozen places, and then had to re-time this baby. Did it come needing to be timed? I doubt it, but in order to get everything moving I released the lower shaft and figured that was going to be the price. Here's the part I released:

Hook drive shaft with hook mechanism in red box, screw to release with green arrow

The green arrow shows the screw I unscrewed that got everything moving but it also threw the timing off. When I went back to set the timing I couldn't figure out exactly how this was going to work without a special tool to measure it, something I always imagine the techs would have. Maybe not because a lot of it is just eyeballing it and testing over and over again. I could move the hook but it never seemed to be right, either way too much or too little, never getting the fine tuning right. When I sat back and looked more closely I discovered I was moving the hook way too easily and how was it going to stay in place?

Bobbin case in place with hook

Taking everything out and moving slowly, I could see how it was supposed to work:

Red arrow for hood, Green arrow for the needle

As the needle goes down the hook comes up and catches the thread as the needle retreats. There is just a small gap that is created for the hook to catch that thread. Pretty cleaver, huh? But I couldn't get the hook to stay in the perfect place because I failed to tighten the screws on the shaft in the first photo.

Set screws in red box: loosen up, position hook, then tighten

Of course, once tightened up it only took a little finessing to get it right and a final test and tightening. I could hardly believe I forgot how to do this but, heah, it's been a long winter and spring is finally here! I got the Viking 12-1 all threaded up and sewing in no time, sounding wonderful and with a bit of a zig-zig sound that is music to my ears.

So the Viking 12-1 that I picked up free but all frozen up, now works and is going to be a mighty fine sewing machine. I can't find a manual but it's pretty straight-forward. It came with a green metal hinged Husqvarna box with an oil can and set of bobbins but it really takes standard class 15 bobbins.

Oil can and bobbins (but what's with those plastic bobbins?)

This is a nice addition to a classic sewing machine that has so little written about it. Another oldie but a goodie, all for your reading pleasure:

Viking 12-1

It's the Little Things

When you are looking for a solution to a problem, sometimes it's the little things that become the solution. Twice in one week I had sewing machines that were sluggish or frozen up. My first find was a Viking 12-1:

Viking 12-1

It was posted on a local for sale site through Facebook but it wasn't for sale: it was free. I sent a message saying I only wanted the sewing machine, not the cabinet, but would take both and donate the cabinet if they didn't mind. Nope, she just wanted it gone. Come pick up day I get a message saying it would be in the driveway but they weren't going to be home. What? How was I going to get it in my car? Would I be brave/coward to just take the sewing machine and leave the cabinet? I hoped it wouldn't come to that but....

When I got to their house it was obvious they weren't at home when their dog was barking the whole time since I was an intruder on his turf. I got the machine out along with the motor block and foot control and some accessories in the desk. Now what? I knocked on the door anyway but no answer so I went back to the cabinet, removed the three drawers and gave a tentative lift. It wasn't as heavy as I thought so I carried it over to the back of the Jeep, gave a lift, and shoved it in. The drawers followed and I drove it straight over to one of the local thrift stores. They gladly took it and gave me a discount card, too!

Once home I set her up for cleaning and repair to find there was no movement. Taking the bobbin holder and entire mechanism out also didn't magically open it up either. I was back to Triflow and the heat of a hair dryer before there was a tiny amount of movement. Then I remembered to check for thread caught in any moving part and did find about five inches wound around the take up lever. Although it helped, there still is no movement of the hook. This is going to take some time and patience, I can see.

The next day I stopped at the Goodwill Outlet and spied a Necchi 531FA in a suitcase that appeared to be in good condition. It came home with me and cleaned right up and ran pretty good but there was some hesitation. Taking a look inside to find any place where it might be binding I found:

Necchi 531FA: do you see the red thread?

thread in the take up lever. This time it was closer to eight inches and was slow to be unwound. It ran better and I think it is going to be a fine sewing machine for the occasional sewer or a newbie.

Necchi 531FA all cleaned up

Yes, it can be the little things that trip us up. Yet they can be the pathway to a great find when the previous owner figured the sewing machine was just getting old and slow. Nope, just needed a little TLC, just like we all do as the years go by. Better get up and take that walk now.