Hello again! I'm back from camp and have a fun find to share with you all. Isn't she a beauty!
I found her at a normally ridiculously overpriced consignment shop in town. The place is packed to the gills with tonnes of overpriced (and often broken) furniture and all sorts of do-dads and treasures. I literally tripped over one of three sewing machines tucked in the back, and after disregarding the other two, found this little girl!
And it not only worked (so far as I could test at the shop without any fabric and thread), but it was only priced at $45! I had to get her to repeat it because I thought she must've for sure meant $145. But nope. I bought it on the spot and brought her home to clean up.
She's a Singer Genie Model 354, made around 1974 in France. There's been some great write up's on her, in particular Sally Ann's review and even Peter of Male Pattern Boldness, who owned one before he started blogging (see his pic series here).
I'm not ashamed to admit it took me about 10 minutes to figure out how to open her:
Sneaky! And even sneakier is where the cable and pedal is hidden:
Apparently not a few people have gotten good deals on these because the seller thought the cable was missing!
Despite first impressions, she's the same size as Maggie Kenmore! I really thought she was smaller. She's definitely lighter, being made of plastic instead of metal. Definitely more transportable than Maggie. BTW, I've named her Genie Singer. I know, bask in my creativity.
As you can see above, there's a bit of damage on the faceplate itself. The needle seems to be moving into the slot fine, so I'm not sure how this happened. I gave Genie a good cleaning and oiling. She was actually in pretty good shape, a bit of fluff in the feed dogs and a bit of old grease. Took me less than 10 minutes, and only that because I had to figure out how to remove the faceplate. And then I realized it's been a really long time since I've cleaned and oiled poor neglected Maggie. THAT took me nearly an hour, she was in a shameful state. I apologized profusely to her, but considering that I then immediately put her away to play with Genie, I'm sure she'll never forgive me. Poor thing.
Off the hop, I'm having trouble with straight stitching with Genie. The stitch lines are looking a little drunk, but I suspect that it's more of a tension issue than anything else. But what I really wanted to try was all of her zigzag options. Look at them all:
Maggie can only do the standard zigzag (and then do some fancy stitches that Genie can't do, so she's still a few up on Genie). Genie can do the standard zigzag, a blindstitch, a funky heart monitor-like zigzag which is apparently better for sewing elastic, satin-stitch, and a multi-stitch zigzag - which I've coveted in other machines! And boy do these stitches look gorgeous (although again, the multi-stitch zigzags look a big drunk because of my wonky straight stitch).
I'm pretty excited about them!
It didn't come with the originally included accessory bag, nor the manual. Luckily you can either order a paper manual or download a free PDF version of it here at the Singer website. I'm also really lucky because many of the feet I use most often on Maggie will fit on Genie. I liked to pick up the lifter piece that allows the faceplate to be raised above the feeddogs for free-motion sewing (the feed dogs on it don't drop down), but honestly, I can do that on Maggie, and I'm happier with her straight stitching.
Genie does have a drop-in bobbin set-up and uses smaller plastic bobbins, but luckily I was able to find them at Wally-World, so that's less hassel than I thought it'd be.
Anywho, that was a looong blog post, but I'm pretty stoked about the new addition to my sewing room (if you couldn't tell). I'm planning on spending the day sewing, so I'm going to get on that. Two things though:
- I know my photos are bigger than usual. Flickr has changed thing (again), and this is how they're showing up on here. I might have to switch to a different photo hosting site, because I'm unhappy with the process right now, but we'll see.
- Does anyone have any suggestions for fixing Genie's straight stitches? I'm going to play with tension and stitch length, but input from you smart folks would be appreciated!
She is sooo funky, and came out around the time I started making my own clothes so yay! I would have fallen in love from the first time I realised the cover had a press button release, that is soooo machine-sexy isn't it!!
ReplyDeleteAs soon as I (finally) got the cover opened, I knew I was going to try to bring her home. SO PRETTY! I love the flowers, and the trick to open it is such a fun detail.
DeleteShe is gorgeous! I have no clue about the straight stitch but that heart monitor zig zag (love that term BTW) is a blind hem stitch.
ReplyDeleteHeh, heart monitor is what it looks like! But actually, there's a blindstitch zigzag and then this funky stitch, which looks like a combination of blindstitch and a standard zigzag, with irregular stitch heights. Weird, but I love it! :) Maybe it's a different type of blindstitch? The manual calls it an elastic stretch. *shrugs*
DeleteThat's one happy looking machine! It makes me think of my mother's Singer, though it didn't have the flowers. I tried to have hers repaired once and was told the plastic parts were difficult to replace and it wasn't worth the effort. I didn't sew so I gave up on it. I love that you just stumbled on this.
ReplyDeleteAw that's sad. :( Might be worth keeping an eye out for a similar machine (seriously, keep an eye out at garage sales and thrift shops, you'd be amazed how many machines you can find there) to see if you can scavange the parts needed for it. It's nice having a sewing machine on hand for hemming pants and curtains (if you have the space to store it), and extra nice if it's a machine once used by a loved one. My Grandma has plans to hand me down her machine someday (when she's done using it - which won't happen any time soon!), and I'm so excited to have the machine I learned to sew on (and all of it's memories) in my sewing room. :)
DeleteShe is totes adorbs! I can't believe I just such asinine words in a totally unironic way. I love that 70s harvest gold (well, not really, but it does bring back memories).
ReplyDeleteI'll let it pass because it is totes adorbs! :D I love the idea of the 70s harvest gold more than the reality of the 70s harvest gold, but it's such a pretty machine that it's more than welcome in my sewing room.
DeleteUse a dremel to buff up the needle plate, you will break less thread that way.
ReplyDelete