Singer 15-91

Well, folks, another one followed us home. In early June, we met a fellow who inherited a Singer 15-91 (this one was made in 1950) and wanted to get rid of it. The good news: The machine wasn't missing any parts and came with a box of accessories, the foot controller, the power cord, and the little green instruction booklet. The perhaps not so good news: For some reason, all the electrical wiring had been disconnected. Because there's always room for one more sewing machine, we loaded it in the back of the Spark and brought it home.

We had a lot of things going on this summer and didn't have a chance to take a good look at the machine right away. When we did, we found it was a tad dirty, which was no surprise. Take a good look at the feed dogs. Not the worst we've seen, but still pretty icky.

We cleaned the machine, oiled and greased it, polished the chrome parts, and replaced the light bulb with a cooler, brighter LED bulb. E used gold acrylic paint on the stitch length regulator so we can see the numbers. (See how to do this at http://vssmb.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-restore-your-stitch-length.html). Before he did this, the numbers weren't visible at all.

He took off the motor, inspected it thoroughly, cleaned a few things, and replaced the wicks. We started thinking about the reasons someone would disconnect all of the wiring from a machine and decided the number one reason would be to keep the house from burning down, so we replaced the power and pedal cords. As we worked on the machine, we ran it through its paces using the hand wheel (no power) many, many times. When we finally plugged it in and gave a cautious, light press on the foot controller, the machine didn’t smoke or burst into flames. In fact, it ran steadily and smoothly. Yay!

I had to read the instruction manual to figure out how to thread it on top – In my defense, it’s a bit odd. Then, I sent a bunch of scraps through and it made a nice, even stitch. Its new home is a cabinet (with a knee controller) we found at a thrift shop and refinished a while ago. Now all I have to do is decide what to sew for its first project as a new-to-me machine. Happy Sewing Everyone!

Kenmore 1040

Yesterday, I went to a church rummage sale and found a plastic, rose-covered carrying case with a $10 price tag hanging from it. When I picked it up, I knew something was in there and when I looked underneath, I could see it was a Kenmore 158.1040. I headed for the check out line.

When I got home and opened the case, the 3/4 size Kenmore was nestled inside. It's 12.75 inches long, 5 inches wide, and 10 inches tall. The throat is almost 7 inches at its widest point. I haven't stepped on the scale with it, but I'm guessing it weighs a little more than 15 pounds. 

If you're wondering where the thread spool pin is, it's down inside the machine. You pull it up when you want to sew and push it down before you put the machine back in the case. The little flip-out accessory box was there and inside were three presser feet (a fourth foot was on the machine), a blind stitch guide, four buttonhole guide feet, one extra bobbin, a needle, a needle plate for zigzag stitching, and a couple of screw drivers. 

To create extra bed space, the accessory box rotates forward and the hinged extension on the end flips up.

The accessory box comes out and behind it is where you find your bobbin and the lever to lower the feed dogs.

E and I cleaned it and oiled it. To do this, we opened the cover plate on the end with the light bulb and then popped off the cover plate on the top of the machine. On the end with the hand wheel, the cover plate is held in place by a screw at the bottom and by a pin at the top. The pin is held in place by a screw (see next photo) which we had to loosen before we could remove the side cover plate. The bottom of the machine is held in place with a few screws, too. We downloaded a free manual from the Sears parts website and it shows where the oiling points are.

After we had everything cleaned and oiled, one problem became apparent right away: The clutch on the hand wheel wouldn't release. We Kroiled the living daylights out of it and left it overnight.  Here's where we put the Kroil:

This morning, I tried releasing the clutch and was surprised when it broke free very easily. The only other problem we found is the feed dogs don't drop. We're hoping the Kroil will work its magic on them. If not, it's no big deal. 

[Update: Eureka! Two days after I posted this, we got the feed dogs to drop. On the underside of the machine, there’s a rod with a pointed tip which passes through a cylinder and pokes out through a ring. (If you have your machine on its back with the bobbin case facing up, the rod/cylinder/ring are to the right of the bobbin case.) When you turn down the lever to drop the feed dogs, the rod ought to pull back from the ring and go into the cylinder. Our rod wasn’t moving, so we Kroiled and heated it until it finally moved freely back and forth in the cylinder. Alas, the feed dogs still wouldn’t drop because even though the rod was pulled back into the cylinder, the ring continued to move up and down when the cylinder moved up and down. There are a couple of joints between the ring and the feed dogs and after we Kroiled and heated those, we finally got the action we wanted.]

The moment of truth finally arrived when we plugged in the machine and started sewing. It made a straight stitch very easily and after it had warmed up a little bit, it began to zigzag and do all of the other built-in stitches. It does a special mending stitch, a blind stitch, and a stretch stitch. There are three other settings on the special stitch dial which you use to make buttonholes. 

I didn't exactly need another sewing machine, but I couldn't resist this little guy. Happy sewing everyone! 

Quilted Wall Hangings

My sister's birthday is today so I dug into my box of flannel scraps and made two wall hangings for her.

They're both 18 x 18 inches and they have the same backing:

My sister sews, too, but these are most likely things she wouldn't make for herself and I think she will like them. A lot of her sewing is for dogs -- Check her out on Facebook where she's known as K9Tailor. Happy birthday, B!!  

New Light Fixture

Several months ago, we started looking for a new light fixture for our front porch. We wanted to have a fixture on only one side of the front door, and we couldn't find anything which would look good as a single fixture. After doing a bit of searching on the internet we found Turtle On A Rock Studio, which is the home of Laura Armstrong, a terrific metal artist located in Texas. Laura worked with us to get exactly what we wanted. 

The fixture is 27 inches high, 7 inches wide, and 4 inches deep. It's made of steel and has our house number on it. Laura included all the wiring needed to install it, along with a set of clear installation instructions. There's a fitted cap on top and a bug screen on the bottom. She gave us the option of using whatever kind of glass we wanted and we chose to use stained glass. The glass is mostly shades of green with some purple swirls which don't show in the pictures you see here. Even though I can't manage to get a decent photo of it, you get the idea, right? Honest to goodness it looks great. At night, when the lights are shining through the stained glass, it's beautiful. 

Even if you aren't in the market for a light fixture, you might want to take a look at Laura's website which shows you more of her work. (No disclaimer needed. The only interest we have in Turtle On A Rock Studio is our interest in promoting art!)

Kenmore 1336

In the late 1970s (I think it was 1976, but I'm not 100% sure), I bought this machine brand new from Sears. For years, the 158.1336 was my only machine and it has always done everything I've asked.  

As you can see, it's a free arm machine and the little tab over on the right lowers the feed dogs. It's a low shank machine and it uses class 15 bobbins. One feature I like a lot is the way the presser foot lever works. You can use it to raise the presser foot what I'll call a "normal" amount and you can keep pushing the lever up to raise the presser foot higher if you're sewing something thick. A lot of machines can do this, but not all of them can. 

You turn the dial on the top to select the stitch you want to sew. This machine can sew straight, zig zag, blind, straight stretch, rick-rack stretch, and overcast stretch stitches. It does not use cams, so it doesn't do any fancy stitches. The pressure regulator (in the upper left corner on the machine in the photo above) on this machine adjusts more precisely than any of the regulators on my other machines. 

There's not much to see on the back side, except the label saying the machine head came with a 25 year warranty. Fortunately, I never needed to use the warranty. A bit of oil and a good cleaning now and then has kept the 1336 perfectly happy. The machine fits inside a plastic case which doesn't have room for much of anything except the machine and the foot controller and cord. 

When I said this machine has always done everything I've asked, I wasn't kidding. I've used it to sew everything from a silk jacquard dress with double-layered silk organza sleeves . . . 

. . . to the seat and side panel upholstery for a 1991 Geo Metro convertible.

I can't imagine I paid very much for this machine, because I didn't have much to spend. Whatever I paid was well worth it, though. Happy sewing everyone!