And it was 1948

It was 1948 the year that The Snake Pit opened in theaters staring Olivia de Havilland.

Touted one of the best movies of the year 1948,  movie-goers flocked to theaters eager to see the well acclaimed novel represented on film with their favorite box office stars playing the lead roles.

In this psychological drama, Virginia Cunningham (Olivia de Havilland) is confused upon finding herself in a mental hospital, with no memory of her arrival at the institution.

Tormented by delusions and unable to even recognize her husband, Robert (Mark Stevens), she is treated by Dr. Mark Kik (Leo Genn), who is determined to get to the root of her mental illness. 

As her treatment progresses, flashbacks depict events in Virginia's life that may have contributed to her instability.

Sound intriguing?

It was also 1948 when this little machine made it’s debut down the Singer Manufacturing Company’s assembly line:

1948 Singer 15-91

It took some doing, but she is finally up and running!

This is a bad mess!

The machine was so eager to sew, it ran the moment I plugged it in!  And my foot wasn’t even ON the foot pedal!

Not good.  Not good at all!

I tried a different plug-in for the machine – I have other machines that use the same kind of plug.  Nope!  It still ran on its own no matter what I did.

I checked the terminals IN the foot pedal.  That was not the problem.  All fine there.

It has to be the wires in HERE:

UGH.  Plug unscrewed from machine.

The problem was there were bare wires shorting out the foot pedal at THIS point..where the plug recepticle is for the wall cord and the foot pedal.  They were wired separately, with the foot pedal bein hard-wired in and the electrical that plugs into the wall being a separate cord.

This is where my friend Grant comes in!  A steady facebook chat and some cheering on while I disconnected the foot pedal, and tried it with a 2 line connection instead of one….yes, I had a spare one of those lying around too!  ((That’s the same kind of connection that a featherweight has))

All plugged and ready to run!

The new plug saved the day.  The foot pedal is no longer wired to the machine, but can be unplugged from the machine along with the electrical cord.  SO much better.  And I learned something.  And I have one other potted motor machine that needs this done to as well…when I have time that is.

Cleaning problems!

My challenges weren’t over.  I could get the front screw off of the needle plate, but the back one was stuck but good and no matter how much torque I tried, I couldn’t get that screw to budge.

I tried soaking it with WD40.  That didn’t do anything.

Back to the wonders of the internet and a post to facebook and instagram for ideas and recommendations.  INSTANTANEOUS RESPONSE!  And off I went to Advance Auto (The only auto parts store in my little one stop light town) for a small ratchet screw driver and some liquid wrench.

My new best friends!

Liquid wrench stinks to high heaven.  But it did the job inside of 20 minutes.  And I was able to use the little ratchet screw driver to easily get that pesky screw from behind the needle bar out of there.  That is just a tough spot back there.  Most screw drivers are too tall, and the short chunky ones don’t fit the slot in the screw.  This is going to save my bacon and I’ll use it again and again.  Thank you internet friends! 

Also recommended by more than one person was a product called Blue Creeper.  It is supposed to work faster than Liquid Wrench, but I couldn’t find it locally.

((I’m thinking how hard it would have been to get this far if we were dealing with this same situation 20 years ago. Friends at my fingertips – I love it!))

THIS is really OLD junk!!

I was able to get in under those feed dogs and get the old fuzzy hamsters out of there.  Who knows how long this has been clogged like this?  Maybe someone else couldn’t get that danged screw out of there either and just left it?  Those feed dogs can sure breathe a lot easier now!

I made a little video of some test sewing!  All I had to do was insert a new needle and adjust the tension a bit.

And then came time for real sewing.

But first…the sticky seam guide dilemma.

I can’t get my Scotch restickable mounting strips any more.  I know some have found them on amazon, but every time I’ve placed an order I’ve been told they are out.  Not available.  I haven’t heard from the company if they are in fact discontinued but I’m tired of trying to find them.  It’s time to move on to something new.

Last weekend I tried these:

Results?  Not so great.

The foam is far too squishy.  It pushes and wiggles if you run your fabric up against it too hard.  That was my same problem with moleskin.  It’s just too soft.  The wax paper on the top of this one came off pretty rapidly and I had to use masking tape on top of it to keep the sticky on top covered.

So I’m trying THIS instead:

Scotch Removable Poster Tape.

It says it’s removable.  It’s not supposed to damage walls.  It’s 3/4’’ wide and there are 4.6 yards on this roll.  This may last me a long time!

I cut a 3/4’’ strip of hotel room key.  Put the strip of double stick poster tape on the back side of the room key. Peeled the backing off and stuck it down to my machine bed after using my seam guide to measure where it needed to go.

So far….SEW GOOD!

Yeah, we are sewing!

And as for this machine’s name?  Back to the top of the post.  Olivia de Havilland was one classy lady.  I think I need to see if I can find this movie from 1948!  And I think I’ll call this machine Olivia!

See you tomorrow at 2pm for Quilt-Cam!

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