Sewing Things

Life has conspired to keep me indoors and otherwise occupied for the foreseeable past. Side projects and immediate family. So, after I have put my computer to bed and rub my screen blurried eyes, I have been doing a little sewing. A little sewing and a lot of obsessing about sewing machines. My current machines are both Singers. The first and favorite is a Singer 15-91 direct drive straight stitch. I love this machine. It is very much like the featherweight my mom taught me to sew on except no belt and is in a table. There is an excellent review of of the Singer 15-91 available here. I had it serviced not long ago and my fondness for it continues to grow.

My other machine is a Zig-Zag Singer 223, Fashionmate. The thing about this machine is its simplicity. I am struggling with its power though. Had it tuned, but I think the motor needs to be completely gone through or replaced. I am reluctant to replace the motor as I know a walking foot machine will be in my future before too long. A Sailrite comes to mind unless some kind of used industrial machine comes along.

The 223 is very solid, has a feed dog raise and lower knob and a blind stitch lever. I'd say the widest zig zag is almost 5mm (closer to 4). I have tried thicker sail thread in it with mixed results. The owner of Ray's Sewing Machine in San Jose said I could try running the thicker thread on the spool and a thinner thread on the bobbin. Haven't tried it yet. Since I am mainly patching a couple of old sails or doing canvas work, I might just look for a thinner high strength thread. I read through Sailrite's pdf on using home machines for sail work. Lot's of good suggestions there which I'll try out.