Pedal to the Treadle, Baby!

Look who’s sewing now!

I did it.  All of the orders that came in up to noon yesterday are on their way. 

And I found myself just a few minutes of play time before having to head back down to Winston Salem for a couple of appointments.

Remember this treadle?  I picked her up from Charlotte Angotti in Columbia, SC as she was on her way from Myrtle Beach back to home.

It’s been a bit of a struggle getting to know more about this machine as the serial number does not have a 2 letter prefix – just numbers.  I have a date, no model.  But it turns out that she is a 27-1 – an earlier 27 with the cast iron arm  as access to her rear parts department:

It wasn’t long after this that Singer started using the chrome round plate -

Instead of this fancy elbow shaped cast iron one -

But isn’t this cool?

Just a humble little sewing station – ready for some stitching!

Click to Play:

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A post shared by Bonnie K Hunter (@quiltville_bonnie) on Jun 4, 2019 at 9:17am PDT

Sometimes I am lucky and the tension is even good on a machine that hasn’t been sewn on in decades.

This one – a bit of a mess.  Bobbin tension – way too tight.  Top tension – someone really battened the hatches down and had that nut screwed down all the way as far as it could go.  Stitch length…so minuscule you could hardly tell one stitch from the next.

That knob above the bobbin winder is the stitch length control – go left to make smaller stitches, turn right to make larger ones – I had to go WAY RIGHT!  And it needed a bit of oil to loosen the gunk in the screw threads.

If you use a different color thread in the bobbin than you do on the top you can easily see which area is your problem child.  It took a bit of fiddling – in fact it took SO much time that my time to play was used up as I needed to hit the road by 12:30 to make my 2:30 appointment in Winston on time.  But she is sewing!

The next job will be to really take care in getting her clean.  The chrome parts need special cleaners to remove the built of grime and be shiny again.  Always be careful with the decals – caustic cleaners can cause the gold to turn silver or white – or remove them all together.  

Gojo hand cleaner (non pumice) is my go to cleanser to start with – and it will be worth it when it is done.

The one problem I had was with the slide plate – the 27-1 has a slightly smaller opening or groove depth/thickness or something than the later 27 models.  I had to swipe this off of another machine.  You won’t know if it fits until you try.  So it looks like two machines will be sharing this front slide plate for a while.

Upon returning home this was waiting for me in a box:

How lucky is this??

Pam sent a box of blue scraps – the scraps were “packing material” surrounding the big prize – a vintage singer “puzzle box” full of attachments including more bobbins that I believe will work with Charlotte’s 27-1!  Yipppeeee!

This was a nice  nice thing to come home to.  Much better than the leaky dehumidifier that had sprung a slow leak in the back room where I store my book back stock.

Luckily no boxes of books were harmed in the soaking mess – but some cartons of mailers and other cardboard was rendered slimy.  It was just a mess, but it is all clean now.  It could have been much worse.  It’s a good thing I moved what merchandise I did when I did.

My friend Linda Hahn has a new book out!

She sent me this copy and it is going with me to Minnesota – great airport/airplane reading!

I adore her great how-to photos - She does a super job with construction, having you over piece the units a bit so they can be trimmed to size and end up happily square!  Love it!

And her color sense and quilts are phenomenal!

Oh my goodness – so much New York Beauty Fun!

Thanks, Linda!

I’m finishing up this post from my gate in Greensboro – a short flight to Detroit, and another shorty to Minneapolis and I’ll soon be in the arms of family in the land of my birth. 

It feels like going home.

Photo from our trip 2 years ago.

Yep! It’s time we did this again!

Quiltville Quote of the Day

Wishing you much peace through making and through giving today!

Have a lovely Wednesday, everyone!