Vintage Kenmore Model 1358 10-Stitch Sews Backwards for Some Fancy Stitches
I have a vintage Kenmore 10-Stitch, which has been used very little - stored away for a long, long time. It is in excellent condition, and has been cleaned and oiled by me. It has one large stitch selector dial for choosing how you wish to sew. This dial has three color sections - Yellow, Red, and Green
Red: straight stitch, and four zig-zag stitches of differing widths. These all sew moving forward.
Green: Shell stitch, blind stitch and mending stitch. All sew forward.
Yellow: Smocking stretch, rich-rack stretch, serging stretch, overcast stretch, straight stretch. These all automatically and only sew backwards. I have been unable to find anything in the instruction booklet indicating that I need to do something extra to make them sew forward, and the reverse lever has not been touched and is not stuck. When the dial is moved to one of the red or green area stitches, it sews forward again!
One additional issue: because the machine was stored for so long, I cleaned and oiled it. The hand wheel still moves very stiffly, but the machine sews quietly and well, though it does not sew at what I would consider "fast speed". Could the motor be somehow bound up, and is there anything I can do to ease up this situation?