Saturday, January 15, 2011

Necchi Mira BU

 
Mira was manufactured in Italy in 1954 and is my first sewing machine purchase of 2011!  She was delivered to my door complete with manuals, accessories, wonder wheel, cams, extra needles, bobbins, two spare light bulbs and an automatic needle threader.  After a good cleaning and oiling, Mira sews absolutely gorgeous, precise stitches.
Look how pretty Mira is.  The stitches under her presser foot were made using the marvelous wonder wheel with cams.  The top thread is red and bobbin thread is lime green.  I'm very impressed with the excellent stitch quality with very little tension adjusting. This machine is super easy and fun to sew with.
She has six cams to make 12 designs.  The two steel rods connect the wonder wheel device to the needle position lever and the stitch width lever.  The wonder wheel is powered exactly like a bobbin winder and gets pushed up against the hand wheel.  As the wheel turns the steel rods move the needle position and stitch width levers back and forth to sew the pattern.  I'm impressed with how well this works.
Not shown in the photos but included in the accessory box are a straight stitch needle plate and a needle plate that covers the feed dogs.  
The green lever  is pushed down to drop the feed dogs for darning or free motion quilting.  The feed dog mechanism works the same way as my Necchi Lelia.
The automatic needle threader works as well or better than any of the modern ones that are attached to the sewing machine.  Mira wears high shank feet, uses standard steel class 15 bobbins and standard needles.
The straight stitching, zig-zag and satin stitches around the outside were sewn with the wonder wheel disengaged.  I'm very impressed with the satin stitching as I was adjusting the stitch width while sewing the seam.  The picture below shows the wonder wheel without a cam and disengaged from the hand wheel.
This manual was printed in June 1954.  It is complete, well written and easy to follow.
This little package contains a piece of nylon thread that looks like fishing line with knots tied in it about every inch and instructions for cleaning the upper thread tension disc with it.  In the past, I used dental floss for this purpose.
Has anyone ever sewn with this scary looking foot?  It is used to make ruffles.

I'm so delighted with my Necchi Mira that perhaps I'll sew my man's shirt with it in Peter's sew along next month.  This is a sneak peak of Shannon's wedding gown!  ~dancing around the room with glee~

For more vintage treasures please visit Colorado Lady's blog.

18 comments:

  1. Hi Tammy,
    Ooooh! Shiny!!! Nice find! Vintage machines are fun, aren't they?
    I'm amazed at the gadgetry of your Necchi,you must have had fun connecting it up and watching it work for the first time. Have fun!

    ReplyDelete
  2. What a lovely vintage machine. you have a treasure. Thanks for sharing. Happy VTT!

    ReplyDelete
  3. woo-hoo what a beauty!

    Jocelyn
    http://justalittlesouthernhospitality.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  4. What a fantastic machine congratulations .I'm new to your bog but soon as I seen where you live I understood all that snow .We lived in Thompson Man. for 12 years Brrrrrrrrrrr.

    ReplyDelete
  5. They sure don't make them like they used to. It will probably be around for another 50 years or longer.

    ReplyDelete
  6. That's a pretty machine. I think the machine my family had (Singer 1958) had a ruffler, but I never tried to use it.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks for the comment on my blog! I LOVE this sewing machine!
    Mindy

    ReplyDelete
  8. She's beautiful! I'm so jealous that you have a RUFFLE foot! You will have lots of fun with that! Thanks for stopping by my page today! -diane

    ReplyDelete
  9. What a great vintage sewing machine-how wonderful to own one!

    ReplyDelete
  10. I love that in addition to having so many stitches, the machine itself is a beautiful piece of design. Nice find---you are going to have fun with this!

    ReplyDelete
  11. I would like to buy that Ruffler foot (the scary thing) off you, if you dont plan on using it.
    the_new_lady@yahoo.com

    ReplyDelete
  12. Just found your blog this morning! My son bought me a Neechi Esperia vintage sewing machine with no information. He is very proud of himself so I'm trying to figure out when it was made. Has Made in Italy on the front. I also have a Neechi Silva that I got as a christmas gift in 1977 & I thought I had died & gone to heaven. My baby girl was the best dressed kid at school! I have sewn everything from drapes to leather to ultra suede & it keeps on going. I have a few machine but mostly I quilt on my Janome MC11000 now.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Hi and Wow!
    What a beautiful Machine.
    I come across these once and a while but
    never this sweet as this. If you see one,
    please let me know. I would love to own
    a machine like this.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I see your stitching came out nicely, but you have that small frame over the wrong lever in your pictures. It's supposed to go over the needle position lever to cover the detents, so the lever doesn't stick in any of them as the Wonder Wheel rod pulls it between left, center and right. You have it over the zigzag stitch width lever where it's not needed. There is another, smaller, similar plate that goes there called the index stop plate. It lets you make a stopping point between two widths so that you can flick the lever from side to side by hand and go between two widths. And having the minimum and maximum be the same every time.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good to know. Thanks for the information Janeiac. I sold this machine four years ago. It is an awesome sewing machine.

      Delete
  15. I have this machine. I have played with all the goodies for the past 50+ years. :-)

    ReplyDelete

Your comments give me quite a thrill. Thanks so much for visiting my blog and please have a super duper day! Unfortunately, anonymous comments are no longer allowed, there was just way too much spam.