Craigslist Rescue - Singer 404

Like I mentioned in the VS2 post, I'm a avid Craigslist cruiser.  Yesterday while making my usual rounds I stumbled onto an ad for this guy.

New And Improved! 1892 Singer Model 27

I don't have any great expertise on checking the providence of machines.  Pretty much what I do is look for sources online.  I don't have access to any secret documentation or anything.  Usually I trust what I read.  Unless it's a place known for egregious mistakes, like Wikipedia or Needlebar.  So from what I've read 1891 was the year that the VS2 transitioned to the Model 27.  This one just misses the cut of being a first year, and comes in as an 1892 machine.

My First Singer VS2 - Do Spiderwebs Count As Patina?

This was kind of a weird Craiglist find.  I scour it pretty regularly.  A couple of days ago I saw the ad for this guy, along with a 27 I'll post next.

Sewing For Charity At The Simsbury Public Library

I finally made it to one of the charity sewing meetings at the library here.  The last two I've tried to attend were snowed out.  Snow, another reason to want to leave Connecticut.

Feeling The Power - Singer 103 In An Industrial Treadle

The 103 is finally back together. Temporarily at least.

Twofer Cleaning Day On The Singer 15-30s

The 1904 was in pieces on the floor and I got to thinking that I might use some of the pieces of Hyman Workman's 1927 to get the '04 back together.  When all was said and done I didn't, but I did use it as an excuse to clean both machines.

Charlie Brown's Sewing Machine - 1904 Singer 15-30

I'm always on the look out for old, sad machines.  I really like taking one that has been beat down hard and getting it back in shape.  They don't get much rougher than this one.

Singer 201 Spa Day. Using A HA-1 Numbered Needle Plate On A 201

If you watched 201 treadle conversion video you may have noticed a couple of photos where I had the 1953 201 stand in for Swan Queen for some expounding on what I was doing in a couple of places.  When I shot those pictures it was pretty obvious that the 1953 needed a bit of cleaning.

Converting Another Singer 201-2 To A Treadle Machine

I was trying to keep the naming theme of the treadle 201s the same.  I couldn't very well call it "White Swan", it would be wrong just on the face of it.  So I went back to the original source for a name.   Introducing, Swan Queen.

128 Gets Its Singer Hand Crank

I have been toying with the idea of buying an original Singer hand crank for a 'portable' machine for a while.  I had the modern knock off that I've used for a couple of years with little complaint.  Once I got the 128 it just seemed like the right time to get an original.  Of course that meant hitting up Helen Howes.

Prepping For NETOGA, About Six Months Early

As I mentioned in this post, I wanted to have my quilting blocks done for the NETOGA (North East Treadle-On Gathering and Academy) before panic time set in around July.  Doing some experimenting I made four Dutchman's Puzzle blocks last week.  On Sunday I decided to get the other dozen completed.

Tuning Up The 401, Again. Supergirl Is Pure Fantasy

This 401 has been sitting on the shelf next to Black Swan's cabinet for a few months now, right next to the 301.  I had brought it in to do some zig zags to overcast some raw edges.  It didn't go well and I put a zigzagger on Black Swan to do the work.  Today I decided to see what was up.

Happy Valentine's Day. Making The Wife's Gift Using Black Swan, Wicked Queen And The 29K72 For The Win.

During one of our pilgrimages to Osgood Textile a couple of years ago we had bought some leather along with a few dozen pounds of other fabrics.  My wife had asked me to make her a bag out of it.  The same style as this one I had made her.

The Heartbreak Of Taking The 1949 221 To Market

Well the Goodwill 221 is listed for sale.  We'll see how it goes.  It's my first 'for sale' machine, so I made sure to get into every nook and cranny to clean it up.  Which it needed.  But dangit, it's so cute!  I'm not sure if I can really sell it. Even my wife is constantly commenting on how cute it is whenever I'm working on it. The 221s suck you in, don't they?  They are the tribbles of the Singer family.

Getting The 128 Ready For A New (Old) Hand Crank

If you read the post about the 128 my sister bought for me in exchange for the 221 I bought her, then you might remember this picture.

Cleaning Case For The 1949 221

The Goodwill 221 arrived a couple of days ago and is in pieces for cleaning.  I'm going to do a post about getting it ready to sale.  I thought the case would be just one part of that post but it became a day long job by itself and so I thought I would run through what I did in a quick initial post.

Playing Sewing Machine Detective

If you have read a lot of the previous entries you know one of the things I enjoy about collecting machines is finding out their history.  Well today I had an internet adventure thanks to the 1953 201-2.

Stepping Out Of My Comfort Zone

I've been sewing, casually, for about 39 years.  Sprinkled in that time there have been spans where I sewed more rigorously.  When I sew, it's usually things like this.

I Can Explain, Really - Another 221

See, here's what happened.  I put the bid in on the Shopgoodwill 221 about four days prior.  The auction hit my $160+$40 shipping limit so I figured it was going to slip away.

I was cruising Ebay and saw this:

Shopgoodwill.com Would Be Funny If It Wasn't So Sad - 221 (I won't say Featherweight, I won't!) And Jinyun Qilong Manufacturing Knows Awesome

I kinda like Shopgoodwill.com when I don't outright hate it.  I don't buy a lot off it, but it's good for picking up stuff that needs some work.  For some reason the shoppers on the auctions there will pretty much ignore anything with problems while going hog wild on the exact same object that doesn't list issues.

Case in point:

A Great Diehl In NY - Singer 103 In An Industrial Treadle

If you read my first post about the Revco Reverse you saw me mention the Philip Diehl 1914 patent (US1118271A).  The patent was applied for on December 12th 1912.  Singer started building this machine in February of 1913 (As far as I can surmise from my interwebs researching).

About a week ago I noticed this in an ad on Craigslist.  This is the best photo and there were no photos of the front of the machine.

It's Not Awesome, But It Works - Revco Reverse On 1908 Singer 27.

It installed the Revco a couple of days ago. The whole installation video at the bottom of the post. Here are the highlights.

The Great British Sewing Bee Is Back! ...please be better, please be better.

I just saw this post on Simply Sewing. It looks like the best sewing show ever is currently filming its fifth season after BBC and the production company made friends again.

From Joe Lycett's Twitter Feed

Dragging Old Singers Into The Post WWII Era - Revco Reverse

For a while now I've been toying with the idea of getting a Revco reverse regulator for a machine.  I've seen a few around, but unfortunately I would have had to buy yet another 66 to get one.  So I passed on them.  Then last week this one showed up on Ebay.

328K Is Singer For Awesome!

This is a follow up to my original post about coverting the 328K to a treadle machine here.

Taking advice from Leila from Grow Your Own Clothes here and some folks on Victorian Sweatshop  I replaced the 328K's stock hand wheel with a 9 spoke designed to be used with treadles.

Drag Racing The 301

There is a group that meets at the library here in Simsbury on the first Monday of each month to sew for charity.  I haven't been yet, but I'm going this coming Monday.  I'm not sure if the library provides the machines we sew on or are we supposed to bring our own.  So to be safe I'm taking a machine.

Unbanished! Treadlizing The 328K

This started out because of a post in the Vintage Singers mailing list.  Someone mentioned getting a 328K to put in a treadle.

One Of The Best Guys I Ever Met

I was digging around for some photos of a period outfit I did today and came across this one from around 2006.

Today On Pimp My Treadle - Singer 125379 For Black Swan

It hasn't been lost on me that this last batch of posts have all been about stuff I've gotten and not about working on the machines.  It was pretty warm here today, up in the 50s, so I decided to rectify the situation by looking for a project I could complete in a day.

Happy New Year - Another 66

I had been holding off on doing this post because I had mis-remembered the production year of this machine.  This was going to be a woo-hoo it's officially an antique built in 1919 post.  But it turns out that my newly minted antique machine is actually the 128 I got from my sister.  This 66-1 is made in 1913.  Yay, it's still officially an antique, just a bit older than I thought.