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.

Once again I tried running some zig zags and the back side was just a mess.  I used the cool tension gauge I had picked up recently and set the bobbin to 23grams, but no matter how tight I turned up the upper tension I just couldn't make a stitch.

I ended up taking the upper tension completely apart, cleaning and polishing everything.  After that I spent a bit of time getting it put back together.  I really don't like the way they changed the assembly for the 401s.  It's a real pain to balance since you just can't press in and turn to fine tune like you can on the earlier tensions.

Anyway, it all eventually worked out and I stated getting good stitches off it again.  Then I went ahead and cleaned it up some.  It needs a new paint job but I can't find any information on what the pantone numbers are for the beige and cream. I toyed with the idea of painting it black, but I think that would be an insult to black Singers everywhere.

I didn't take pictures of the work in progress because I wasn't planning on doing a post about it.  But while I was cleaning it I got to thinking about the Supergirl TV show.  If you haven't seen it, the early seasons are worth watching just for Calista Flockhart's performance as Supergirl's 'normal life' boss.

Supergirl's BFF in the early episodes is a guy named Winn.  Winn is supposedly very good with a sewing machine.  So good he makes Supergirl's supersuit. With this.

Okay, YAY! they have a Singer in the show.  But a 401, really?  I mean com'on guys do we really think a 401 could handle making this?

Alien woman shows up on earth and fights crime wearing miniskirt, okay.  That outfit being sewn together on a 401.  Puh-lease!  We need a little belivability

Forget that it's 'super fabric'  Just look at the number of layers.  At the belt I'm counting 4 layer of fabric where it folds back on itself for the zipper.  And if you look at her skirt's panel seams you can see it's some pretty stout fabric, maybe even fashion weight leather.  Could a 401 punch through it? Sure.  Would the stitches look like crap?  You betcha.

I'm thinking that even a 201 would be making some iffy pulls when it gets thick.  For that kind of work you are talking a 15 on the marginal quality end.  I'm thinking more likely a 22U if we are talking zigzag.  A 151W straight stitch would probably be best.

Oh, and if someone put a plate of food in front of my sewing machine I would beat them.  Bad Winn, bad!

But I managed to suspend my disbelief and continue to enjoy the show.