Merry Christmas 2015!

"For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." Luke 2:11

So, today started out a little hectic. The wife and son are in the emergency room. Son has either appendicitis or (hopefully) something less serious. Blood work seems to indicate it isn't the former, praise the Lord.

Now on to things less important. A good friend's daughter is renting a place and offered to clean out the basement for the owners. She ran across the items below, which made their way to me via a Christmas present. How cool is that!

All these things are for a Class 301 Singer, of which I just happened to pick up not too long ago.
(click here)

First up is a Buttonholer:

Broken timing belt? We have a solution - Singer 111W155.

When I arrived at the 111W155 sewing machine seller's home to take a look at it, she said right off that "the belt broke". I naturally thought it was the main drive belt, not the timing belt. But alas, it was the timing belt. I assumed the upper main shaft had to be removed from the machine to get a new belt onto the shaft. I was taking a bit of a chance buying the sewing machine, not knowing how difficult (or easy as was the case) it would be to replace the timing belt, but I decided to take the leap. Below is a photo of the broken belt.

I ordered a new belt from an eBay seller for $19.95 with free expedited shipping. I got the new belt in 5 or 6 days.

Industrial Strength - Singer 111W155

It's been a long time coming but I finally got my first real-life honest-to-goodness industrial sewing machine. And as the title states, it's a Singer 111W155. This machine weighs in at a portly 61.5 pounds. Yes, that is only the sewing machine head unit. The table/motor is probably another 80 or 90 pounds, although I didn't weigh it. Here she be in all her glory ('scuse the previous owner's dust).

I've sewed through a lot of heavy duty things on my domestic machines such as leather and canvas, and they do quite well, but having a true industrial..... well, it's just cooler to a sewing machine nut such as myself.

Singer 301A LBOW

Another Singer followed me home from a garage sale a couple weeks back. And a model that I haven't owned before, to boot. A Singer 301A. Oh, and the LBOW, you ask? Those that are into the Singer lingo know that it stands for Light Beige / Oyster White, that once-ubiquitous two-tone color combination Singer used so much.

As you can see, this sewing machine needs a bit of cleaning. The lady I purchased it from said it was probably good for parts (!). I was thinking that it seemed to be in pretty nice condition to just become a parts machine.

Singer Golden Touch & Sew Deluxe Zig Zag Model 630

The title says it all. Ok, so maybe it doesn't, but we do know from Singer's name for this machine that it does zig zag stitches. What we don't know until we delve into it is that it has an electronic motor control, which has an automatic needle-up park feature. That's kind of cool. And it has very similar stitch controls to the much-revered Singer 401/500 series. And it has a built-in bobbin winding feature. You simply leave the bobbin in the machine, flip a lever, hit the gas, and don't let up until the bobbin is full. But enough of this. On to the photos, which by the way, were taken before I did anything to clean up the machine.

The carrying case leaves a little to be desired. Instead of gluing down the loose flaps, someone decided it was easier to just rip off the offending flaps. Bummer. But the big S is still proudly displayed.