1940 Singer 15-91 - Pearl

This is Pearl, she is 70 years old and another rescue from the dump!  Unfortunately, this one needed lots of refurbishing. 

Instead of belt drive, she has a gear-driven motor, which makes her very unique in my collection.  Looking at the "after" photos now, "before" photos would have been good. As always, I cleaned, oiled, replaced the rubber bobbin winder tire and thought we were good to go.  The needle bar moved freely, the black finish was lovely, all the sticky residue was removed from the throat plate.

I ordered a marked throat plate, straight-stitch walking foot and deluxe darning foot for Pearl from Jenny at Sew-Classic.

What a beauty...I was smitten! So I took out the bobbin plugged her in and tried the foot pedal.  Pearl's gear-driven motor was worn out.  It would start off sewing but the longer I pressed the foot pedal the slower the machine sewed.  After about five minutes the motor would just hum and not turn the needle bar at all.  So I tried disassembling it, lubricating with singer grease.  This made no difference.  The Brandon Sewing Centre did not have a replacement motor and it is not possible to order a new motor.  I contacted Dominion Sewing in Sudbury, Ontario, they had six used gear driven motors in stock, only one was good.  I bought it and had it shipped to Brandon.  The Brandon Sewing Centre installed the new motor.  Next, the 70 year old electrical cords were worn and frayed.  So I took the plunge, bought a new electronic foot pedal, 16 feet of heat resistant appliance wire and a new plug.  On Tuesday, June 22, my husband rewired Pearl.

Now she not only looks beautiful, but sews fantastically.

This is Pearl wearing her new straight stitch walking foot.

The yellow straight stitch on white is the bottom side sewn with Pearl.

This is the top side.

Photo above is the bottom side.

This is a baby quilt for a little boy.  Happy sewing all!  For more vintage treasures, please visit Colorado Lady's blog.

Basement Project - Phase One

My darling husband Doug is the master carpenter of this project.  I have more of a supervisory/cleaning role.  I picked the laminate flooring it is called Kenyon Slate.  I also did most of the furniture moving and all of the cleaning.  The walls were dry-walled and painted by Doug as well.

This is my comfy chair where I sit to watch television or my fish.

I find it difficult to take good photos of tropical fish. 

Tammy's craft emporium is on the other side of the wall behind the ironing board.  This is my cutting/sewing/ironing overflow that no longer fits in the emporium.

There are four bright florescent lights in this area which is super for sewing.

The wall behind the bookshelf is new as Doug extended the existing wall by six feet to buffer the noise from upstairs.  This project was a ton of work for Doug, I am delighted with the results!

This is Doug posing with Shannon who is modeling the bridesmaid dress for Karyann and Jason's wedding.

1960s Imperial Sewing Machine - (Ruthie)

This is Ruthie, she was manufactured in Japan and rescued from a premature trip to the dump!

She sews fancy zigzag stitches with built in cams.  The cams are selected by using a stitch selector dial and switching the stitch width knob to "F" once the stitch is selected the stitch width is moved back to "O".  She has an automatic four-step button holer on the reverse dial. 

When I brought her home, she needed a good cleaning, was starved for oil, as well as missing her manual and accessories. 

After cleaning and oiling I tried to sew with it.  The stitch selector dial would not turn at all.  At first Ruthie would not sew either, because the bobbin thread was completely pulled through to the top side.  After fiddling quite a while with the top thread tension, there was still no improvement on the stitch quality.  The bobbin tension screw was the problem, it was so loose it could have fallen out on its own.  A couple of twists on the little screw and Ruthie was sewing precise lovely stitches.  The bobbin winder would not turn either, so I completely disassembled, cleaned, oiled and reassembled it.  Now it works perfectly.  A hair-blower and sewing machine oil were used to unfreeze the stitch selector dial.  The oil goes over the froze up metal parts inside the machine, then heat was applied to get the metal really hot.  As the metal expands the oil penetrates the ceased up parts then like magic the moving parts are free.  I had to replace the bobbin winder tire and the light bulb.  Look at Ruthie's stitches!


After I phoned the lady who gave me this machine she dropped off the manual and accessories. 

 

Ruthie uses high shank feet, standard class 15 metal bobins and regular sewing machine needles.  There are two buttons control the feed dogs for free motion quilting and embroidery.

For more vintage treasures please head over to Colorado Lady's blog. 

Husqvarna 6570 (Ruby)

In 1979 Ruby was the last mechanical sewing machine manufactured by Husqvarna.  She was the top of the line and retailed for $1200 USD. 

In February 2010 I bought her online from a person in Montreal (as a birthday present to me) based on only one very poor photograph.  Ruby has eight plastic cams that fit into a shaft on her backside to make fancy decorative and utility stitches.

When she arrived here, one of her eight cams was broken and another was missing.  There were no accessories or manual.  The worse part was that after I cleaned her up she would not sew.  The transmission that drives the needlebar was worn out.  I could not find anyone in Brandon to fix her so I packed her up and shipped her to the Dominion Sewing Centre in Sudbury, Ontario.  I just got her back a few weeks ago.  

Dominion Sewing rebuilt the transmission, replaced the entire top tension mechanism, fixed the buttonholer, the needle up/down feature,  replaced the bottom screws that hold the motor and plug outlet in place and replaced the right side panel where the light switch and bobbin winder are.  After all this work Ruby was shipped back to me as good as new.

I purchased all the accessories and missing/broken cams from Dominion Sewing as well.  I have only sewn a few test scraps with her, but I sure do like looking at her.  She is red after all.  How many folks have a lovely red sewing machine to admire? 

I bought an electronic copy of the manual on-line and printed it.

Ruby also has an extension table.

The light is designed to be pulled down for finer work or to replace the bulb.  She also has a 5th gear, by pulling out the plastic nob behind the bobbin winder the machine will sew at 1/5th its usual speed with full piercing power for heavy duty fabrics or precise fine work.

 

This is a small scrap sample of  a few of Ruby's stitches. 

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

Pfaff QE 4 (Big Bertha) - New Take Up!

This is the take up on my Husqvarna 500.  The old Pfaff QE 4 take up was almost identical to it except that Big Bertha's has a protruding upper lip at the open end. 

See the black thread guard on the left hand side... it is now impossible for the thread to jump off.  My Pfaff dealer also replaced the first thread guide with the guide pictured below.

I made Jason's vegetable quilt and Shannon's quilt using my Pfaff QE 4 before she was fixed.  On Shannon's quilt I changed thread colours every time the block colour changed.  I was using a zig zag top stitch and a quilting blanket stitch to outline the blocks.  I lost count how many times the top thread broke while using the blanket stitch.  Thank goodness that the needle threader works perfectly.  When I got to fmq the dark green border on Shannon's quilt, Big Bertha was skipping stitches and breaking the top thread so much, that I finished the fmq on my trusty Husqvarna (Heidi).

I quilted the Strawberry Shortcake Tutu Cute baby quilt using Big Bertha after I got the new take up.  The difference was amazing.  I used hot pink thread in the bobbin for all the free motion quilting.  On top I used hot pink thread in the centre, then white on the white border and variegated green on the striped border.  No skipped stitches at all, the top thread did not break even once with the feed dogs down using both sensor motion and spring motion feet.  It was wonderful!  Finally it is really fun to quilt with this machine.

I am delighted to say that my love/hate relationship with Bertha is evolving into a love/love relationship!

Tutu Cute baby quilt is finished.

First baby girl born in my family gets this little quilt.

Here are some close-ups for us folks who like to examine stitches.

I used hot pink thread in the bobbin for all the quilting.

This is variegated green thread.

Happy Easter Weekend All!