Sewing on and Serging forward

This is my Super Jeans 34. The big daddy of Toyota's Super Jeans machines with 34 stitch options. It's black, well actually it's more like a dark brown to my eyes. Like almost every domestic sewing machines today, it has a plastic exterior with a rigid metal frame inside. This makes for a lightweight machine, but one which can still punch its way through multiple layers of denim fabric with ease. So what drew me to this machine and what is it like to use? Well, first let me say that my partner has been using a Toyota Quiltmaster 226 for close to 5 years and swears by it as a real, un-fussy workhorse. She is a quilter and has made a multitude of quilts on her machine since we bought it, and it has been totally reliable. I have a Toyota 3304 over locker that I use for garment construction too. It took me a weekend to get to grips with a machine that uses 4 threads instead of two, but since then I loved using the 3304, it's a great over locker, quiet, easy to use, ...

Before throwing out the corroded parts for my Singer 99K, the original needle plate and presser foot, I did a little aggressive clean up with a my Dremel, a grinder bit followed by an oil-stone. Off came the corrosion, but so did the mirror-like shine on both parts. Are they still usable? Definitely yes, in fact the foot is now back on the machine as my standard working foot. I really like the 1/8" narrow leg on this foot.  The needle plate looks fine, if a but dull, but again it is totally functional. However I am keeping the new plate on the machine as it has seam guide markings, unlike the original plate. Original presser foot and needle plate have cleaned up to a usable condition.

The tools for the job, just add my Singer 99 sewing machine  Diane broke her sunglasses a couple of weeks ago. Yesterday she bought a new pair (in the hope of a summer some time this year.) Her new glasses have no case, so she asked me to make one for her from my pile leather scraps. I have a fair bit of automotive upholstery leather bits and pieces that I picked up at The Gloucester Resource Center's Scrapstore a few weeks back. Leather needles and a Teflon foot that I ordered for my machine arrived earlier in the week. (I used the standard Singer straight stitch foot for this project). I don't have much of an excuse not to make a case for Diane's sunglasses and put my old Singer 99 machine (and me) to a new test. I was not going to try anything fancy for this project, just a plain slipcase with a flap, simply sewn together. No gluing involved. First I had to carefully iron out a few kinks and creases in the leather using a medium/hot dry iron and brown paper to avo...

The replacement needle plate with seam allowance markings that I mentioned in the last post has arrived, and it is much better, but there was one small issue. It's a really tight fit to sit it in place. Looking at it closely in situ I found that the needle also drops really close to the edge of the needle hole. I needed to make a few modifications to make it seat a little better in the bed of the machine..... out comes the Dremel and a conical grinding wheel. A few minutes of grinding and checking the fit and the plate fits just right. I suppose I should have sent it back, but it was a simple and easy fix to do. New Needle plate fitted. I use Coates "Moon" thread as my go-to thread. At less than £1 for a 1,000yd spool, it is inexpensive, comes in a wide range of colours and shades and is strong. But, as I found out yesterday the 99K has an issue with it. It's a cross wound thread, which, unlike the parallel wound spools of old, it needs to peel the thread off o...

This is my recently acquired Singer 99. Made in the UK in 1951 as part of the Singer Centennial year, which I found it in a local secondhand shop. It is small and heavy, being around 3/4 the size of Singers model 66 of the same period. I have been casually looking for a vintage "black" Singer sewing machine for a while. This was the first that I have found that caught my eye as worth a second look. When I found it, it looked in reasonable condition, it had a motor which I was unable to test and the store owner had not tested it either, but the wiring looked very suspect. Turning the hand-wheel made the needle mechanism work, so it seemed in reasonable mechanical condition. There was no noticeable rust other than on the needle plate under the presser foot, which is a sure sign that the machine had not been used in a very long time. The case was a little knocked about, but nothing that was more than reasonable wear and tear. It had it's original instruction manua...