ThayerRags

Besides, it would be a lot of extra work if you decide not to continue the machine as a hand crank. I modified a Singer 99 case, but I have the crank off of my Singer 66-1 in a vinyl bag that began life as part of a purse in an old purse factory here. I stitched it into a bag with a sleeve in the top for a draw string, and once drawn up, I tie the strings around the arm of the machine to keep it from banging around inside the case and maybe bending or breaking the needle. It keeps the crank from tumbling out when I open the case too. The case won’t close with the crank mounted, so I stuck a screwdriver in the accessory compartment to put the crank on and take it off.

I fiddled with my 1943 Singer 29K70 Patcher machine today and got some sewing done. I keep this machine at home and haven’t used it much. I generally use the one down at the shop. The take-up lever on this one had a deep notch in its eye from use, so I bought a new lever but ran into fitment problems that I mentioned earlier. The first test stitching that I did with it this week was depressing. It was missing a lot of stitches when going in two directions, and it seemed like it had not missed a stitch any other time that I had used it in the past, so I got to investigating. I found that the shuttle that I had loaded with black thread was worn out, so I switched the bobbin to the shuttle that had held the white thread that I had used last and no more missed stitches. The take-up lever appeared to be working correctly, so I threaded up to do a project.

The project was a school Letterman’s Jacket that needed patches sewn down both sleeves. It’s a perfect project for a patcher machine, and there were plenty of patches to be sewn. I sewed 4 patches on one arm, and 5 on the other. This young man is quite an athlete. I had to remove basketball patches down one arm to replace them with football patches that I removed from the other sleeve (the number of patches per year caused fitment issues). His Mom has plans for all of his basketball patches that won’t fit on his jacket. The removal of existing patches will leave needle holes, but he’s ok with that. His left sleeve will now be 2011 football, his upper back is 2012 football, his right sleeve is 2013 football, and his lower back will be 2014 patches whenever they award them. I guess he likes football best of all of his sports. I do have to put a golfing award patch over one front pocket, and a basketball award patch over the other front pocket, I assume so that people won’t think he’s just into football. Those two will be a challenge because of the sizes of the patches and the pocket interiors, but I think the patcher will make it possible. Hehe, and I thought I was doing good back in the 60s just to get an athletic letter at all! Back in those days though, they gave you a letter when you were first successful, and then little metal concho-looking things with long barbs on them to poke through the letter and clinch on the backside. They didn’t issue individual patches for separate accomplishments. And the metal things were always getting caught on something and getting bent or pulled loose. Ahhh, those were the days.

I used the mechanic’s stool on wheels for the first time with the patcher, and everything went well. Actually, it went better than the couple of times previously that I’ve used it with the Singer 319 household treadle. The patcher is on wheels and can move too, but I didn’t have any problem staying hooked up to the treadle. Having the machine up higher on wheels did make me feel like my knee was up under my chin, and my leg started to feel a little cramped after a while, but I was able to keep a nice even pace for sewing. Stitching along the outline of embroidered patches takes fairly slow treadling (especially around the shape of Oklahoma), and there are very few places where it takes any extra effort to treadle a Singer 29K70. In my old age, I just really do like seats with wheels on them so that I can buzz around my work area when I need something and not have to get up, so I was glad that things went well with me and machine both on wheels on a hardwood floor.

CD in Oklahoma