I still have “Old Gem”, my German Singer 111G156 (that I got from the family of friend and lifetime upholsterer “Jim” here in town), inside in the Bike Shop for the winter while the power stand for it languishes out in the cold shed. A few days ago, I put the steering wheel spinner knob (suicide knob) on it that had been on the Singer 95-40 while I was experimenting with that machine using large jean hemming thread. After completing my test stitches on re-hemming jeans, I hadn’t planned on using the 95-40 for a while, and I thought there might be a time when I would want to handcrank a combination feed machine for something.
Sure enough, today, I had a leather/vinyl project come up that I needed a freearm to get to where I needed to repair failing Tex90 (large thread) stitches. The purse handles on a purse (that had not been put on correctly to begin with) needed resewn to get a little more life out of the purse. I couldn’t bend the purse enough to use a flatbed machine on it. I tried my Singer 29K70 on it, but the stitches weren’t going to be long enough to match the original stitching. I really wanted to use the old holes for my new stitch line to keep from piercing new holes into the handle tabs, making a weak attachment system even weaker.
So, my thoughts turned to Old Gem. By using him as a tabletop machine, I was able to bend the purse down and under the bed of the machine to get to where I needed to sew. I’m sure glad Miriam let me in on how handy Brodie Knobs are on sewing machines! I’ve got three machines fitted with them now, and they can be easily removed and mounted onto another machine in just minutes. For slow sewing, especially for repairs, they’re just the thing!
CD in Oklahoma