Friday night cricket and stitching. Most definitely my favourite kind of Friday wind down after an eventful week. The scrappy flying geese are mounting up. I'm still not sure what I am going to do with them.
Alright, my roommate took a look at the lock and helped me open it by pointing out it would unlatch if I pushed the sections of the lock outwards. And with that, pictures. Guys. She's GORGEOUS.
And here I choked up:
Over sixty years ago, my great-grandmother wrote herself a little note on a piece of scrap paper she never expected anyone else to see. Exactly the type of note I've written any number of times. Moments we see ourselves repeating forwards and back.
Taking her in to get serviced tomorrow for the first time in at least sixty years. We'll see what her internal situation is.
I got a buttonholer! Never sewn a buttonhole before in my life (by hand or machine), very much experimenting with tension and need to experiment with thread size, but they are buttonholes! Exciting!
It came with the original instruction leaflet which was very clear - I have not used any external tutorial. There are 5 buttonhole templates (one of them is in the gizmo already) to control the length and shape of your buttonhole, and a lever on the side to control the stitch width. The leaflet has instructions for managing the thread ends neatly but I have ignored those so far. I have cut these buttonholes with a seam ripper as suggested in the instruction leaflet; a buttonhole chisel might happen some other time.
Note that machine buttonholes are a special case of the zigzag stitch, usually accomplished by moving the needle side to side. My sewing machine (made in 1955) is a singer featherweight 221k and it does not have a zigzag stitch. The buttonholer clamps down and shifts the entire fabric side to side instead, as well as moving it in an oval to go around the buttonhole.
Adventures of an Accidental Featherweight Tech: Ruth
On a bit of a roll at the moment! I usually work on two machines at a time and having gotten pretty good results with Susan, I was feeling ready to take on the other machine I pulled.
So then! Ruth!
Ruth is the second oldest machine in the collection, coming in at a stately manufacture year of 1937. You can tell she's one of the older machines if you know what to look for - the throat plate has no seam guides, for example, and the stitch length indicator is etched, making it a bit harder to read at a glance.
It looks like Ruth has had some degree of work done in the past. These look like remnants from an electrical plug, and I noted that the cables themselves felt awfully rubbery and flexible. Not that I'm complaining, I don't mind having a machine that I don't have to do foot controller surgery on (foreshadowing).
There were, however, some other peculiar issues with Ruth. One of the things I noticed immediately was that the bed extension was very floppy - that's the large flat stage off to the left as you stare head on at the machine, meant for supporting your project while you actively stitch. Normally it folds up when you put it into the case, and it's pretty good about folding up and staying up, but when I pulled Ruth out, the bed just kinda…flopped down.
So that was curious. I did a bit of research and it looks like the screws that hold the bed extension in place are supposed to have two washers on each screw, one curved and one flat. I took off the screws (after a bit of struggle because BOY were those screws on tight) and had a look and…huh. Ruth had the curved washers on both sides, but no flat washers. Just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating what I read I pulled out the Featherweight schematics and confirmed that, yes, there's supposed to be a flat washer present. I'm still a little perplexed as to WHY the flat washers were removed, as I imagine the bed flopping down isn't healthy for it. I'm not sure if they were harvested for another machine, or if someone preferred the loose bed, or if someone decided they were perfect for a different project. It's an oddly specific thing to remove, and I feel like if the machine is otherwise working okay and isn't a parts machine, why would you remove them?
My initial thought was to see if maybe I could find a similar replacement washer from ye olde hardware store, but I didn't have any dimensions to go off of. My next thought was to go to Designated Parts Machine Judy and harvest the washers there. Simple answer, right?
It turns out that despite the fact that Judy's bed was pretty solid about staying put, she only had one complete set of washers - in other words, a flat washer and a curved washer, but only on one side. Which. I just. What is WITH the disappearance of these washers? Is there some other mysterious project out there that uses these washers?
So, FINE. I harvested both because might as well at this point (And Judy's bed is still pretty solid, so I don't know what Ruth's deal is). I figured I'd try just the one flat washer and see if that improved things sufficiently.
Oh but in the meantime, I went ahead and got measurements of the flat washer with my digital calipers. For posterity's sake, here's what I got:
Even if my numbers need to be smoothed a little to fit standard washer sizes, those are some TINY ASS washers. I tried looking at a site that specializes more in strange hardware bits and bobs and still couldn't find something that quite worked. But, okay. We have at least one flat washer. Maybe that would be enough. I put it on and it helped…kinda. The bed was better about staying up, but after only a couple of ups and downs the screw would loosen and we were back to floppiness.
I finally decided the best option would be to find an original set of washers. I tracked down someone selling some and ordered a couple sets. In the meantime, Judy's curved washer had disappeared, which bugged the crap out of me. Like, I know it's a tiny-ass washer, but I was trying real hard to not lose track of it in case I needed it for a future project.
The washers showed up, and it was time for the install. I take the screws back of and, um.
Okay so how did I end up in such a state where I put both Ruth's original curved washer AND Judy's curved washer AND the flat washer on the screw? I. I just don't know. I'm clearly a danger to myself and others. But FINE, I at least know where my spare curved washer is now. I also apparently managed to install the washers upside down, as the cup of the washer is supposed to face the machine. So no wonder Ruth's bed was still floppy. Clearly I'm succeeding at everything. I wonder now if the bed would have worked better with one flat washer if I had installed the curved washer in the right direction, but it's kinda moot at this point. We've got the washers, might as well use them.
Curved washers on. Flat washers on. The bed is now no longer floppy. It's a freakin' miracle.
Ruth had more surprises, in the form of the current record for most stressful stitch tests. So normally, if you increase the pressure gradually on the foot controller, there's a brief moment where you can hear the motor running but the needle isn't moving. Usually once you put enough juice into it the motor turns enough to start the needle. I start Ruth up, do a successful stitch test, then stop applying pressure to the foot controller. The needle stops, but I'm still hearing the noise the motor makes right before it starts moving the needle.
Which is…concerning.
Also concerning: It feels like the foot controller is warm. We don't like this.
I unplug the machine IN A BIT OF A HURRY before something terrible happens and proceed to open up the foot controller to see what's going on, and YES we do indeed have a problem.
Okay, so what we're looking at here is the inner guts of the foot controller. The dark bar inside the white foot controller casing should be adjusted so that it's about 1/8 of an inch away from the edge of the outside of the foot controller. I would guess that's maybe 1/4 of an inch inside? At least? In any case it's WAY too much. The result is that the bar was still completing the circuit even though there was no pressure, and causing the motor to attempt to start the needle moving. A quick adjustment with a screwdriver and a reassembly of the foot controller casing and we were much better behaved. Hopefully Ruth won't be the cause of any electrical fires anytime soon.
For a brief interlude, I've mostly been working with the older style buttonholer when pairing machines up with them. I decided to get one of the newer (relatively speaking) ones to mess around with. I may end up switching to an older buttonholer to pair with Ruth, as that would match her age a bit better, but it was an interesting diversion. If nothing else I kinda love the case. It's very 60's vintage. It's the sort of thing Elroy Jetson would carry his lunch in.
I don't know when the transition was from the older to the newer version, but boy does this thing look straight out of the sixties. I'm pretty sure the body is plastic, so I would guess it started appearing around the same time as the white Featherweight. It works about the same, although it feels a little less solid than the all-metal buttonholers. It also broke one of my needles, which was cause for panic until I realized the loud THONK I heard was the needle snapping, and not Ruth throwing her motor or some other such thing. I suspect that was because I was using a thumbscrew that wasn't quite right for the buttonholer and it came loose during the test (So more user error than bad buttonholer, and I've since fixed that little problem).
Anyway, the machine itself taken care of, it was time to tackle the case. Which has Seen Things.
Possibly things involving sparkly lime green nail polish (at least, I'm pretty sure it's nail polish). I had a hard time getting the sparkle to show up on camera, but trust me, it's there. It's actually kinda a fun color. Might need to hunt down some sparkly lime green nail polish at some point.
BUT THIS HANDLE. Oh man this handle. This handle is both clever and hilarious, props to whoever came up with this. So this is the older style handle, which instead of using a pin-and-post style used a sort of stitched mount and D-rings to hold the handle in place. The good news for me is that D-rings are much easier to dislodge, and it only took a couple of pairs of pliers (and vice grips where needed) and a bit of wrenching to remove them. I guess at some point in the past the original handle wore away, and this was someone's solution. And actually, it works fairly well!
I'm actually kinda curious as to what kind of cable this is, because it's STURDY. The inside looks like it's a very thick piece of copper wire, and maybe something surrounding the wire? It's hard to tell. I do applaud someone's ingenuity and resources to decide this was the solution for a broken handle.
As with getting it off, putting a new handle on was a simple affair - a couple of D-rings, pliers, and one lovely assistant to hold the handle in place so it didn't flop around quite so much while I was squeezing the D-rings shut.
One clean and polish later and Ruth is ready to go! Despite a couple of Moments, everything went well, all things considered. Hopefully I'll be able to find her a good home soon.
Went out early this morning with my wife to go to an estate sale. She’s been trying to find a vintage Singer Featherweight sewing machine. They had one in excellent condition, with the case. She paid a bit more than she’d hoped, but still less than we’ve seen them go for online.
I just researched it by serial number, and it was manufactured in October 1950 in Elizabeth NJ. This particular model, the 221, is known to be steady, reliable and durable.
We were the third and fourth people in to the sale, and a lady in line behind us was also there for the sewing machines (they had six for sale), and she was kind of annoyed that my wife got the Featherweight first.
