Also the car gods, and the computer gods have been demanding sacrifices. Since money is in very short supply in my life, that limits what I can do. The local Walmart the only real sewing store in town has closed their sewing section as they modernize their store, making it bigger so they can sell less and less. That means I either have to drive an hour each way to get sewing supplies, or mail order them sight unseen. Small towns are great places to visit, but I wish I had the resources of a large city at hand.

I really did want to learn to make nice shirts, but it looks like time, money, and resources are lacking. With ill fitting dress shirts costing $50 and more that would be a nice skill to have. I did buy up a bolt of tan canvas when Walmart was closing out the fabric to use for making bags and cases.

The funny thing is the cheapest things about sewing these days are the sewing machine. One can buy a fine old sewing machine for next to nothing. Everything else is pretty expensive. A couple of packs of good needles costs about as much you can pick up a sewing machine for at Good Will.

What has happened is I decided to once make photography my central interest as it was for many many years. So that has been where my money has gone. Then the past couple of months the car gods have been demanding sacrifices. In the mean time the local Walmart has quit carrying fabric and a lot of other sewing supplies. While there are two or three quilting stores in town there now are no general sewing supply stores. That is kind of limiting. The nearest place is now a two hour round trip.

Of course having a sewing machine for mending is still nice.

Self-portrait using home sewn backdrop

The other day I sewed rod pockets on a piece of gray fabic I found in the $1.50 section a Walmart.  Presto, a 5×8 backdrop for under $5.00 including sales tax. Above you  an see how it works in a test shot.

Home sewn backdrop

In this photo there is a piece of plastic pipe in the bottom pocket to hold it in place. The top pocket is not being used.

Singer 750

Someone, presumably a so-called technician, had adusted the upper tension setting so it sewed properly at about “1″ on the dial. Singer spec’s “4″ for most of their machines, but this one has a lot of special stitches that have to have very loose tension.  The dial shows zig-zag from 1 to 4, and straight stitches from 6-9). I wound up setting it so it sews evenly with my standard needle and thread at about 6, and so far that seems to work well (I do not have a service manual for the machine). There is a web expert out there that says he always sets upper tension at 2; I think that leaves you SOL if you try to use a very heavy thread.

I have read a lot about the nylon gears in these machines and how bad they are. Only problem I do not see those nylon gears in there, although they may have made several versions of the 750 over the years. The drive gears are metal, the sub-gears are either anoized aluminum or something like Deldrin (a very high tech super durable plastic). The cam stack and related parts does seem to be nylon however.

Also the housing on this machine is alloy, not plastic as sometimes reported. It remains to be seen if the reported timing problems show up. I am beginning to suspect that most of the problems reported about these machices is a case of the service tech not being very knowledgable about them, as they are different in many ways than the earlier machines.

This machine that I only got because it came with the table I wanted, has now become my main machine. The Singer 337 is planned to go to a young lady I know who has lots of kids to sew for.

*****

I am not so lucky all the time. I recently bought a Singer 301 at the local Goodwill store for not too much money.

Singer 301

It had a lot of mold on it as it had apparently been stored for decades in a damp basement or some such place. Unfortunately, the mold had eaten into the paint. OK, so I can not clean it up and sell it, but it did come with a complete set of feet that I can use on the 750, they are both Slant Needle machines. Or did it? Nope, unfortunately, those feet are for commercial high shank machines. I cleaned most of the mold off it, and plugged it in. It does run. I guess I can put it up on eBay for parts or something. It would cost more to restore it than you can buy a minty one for.

Library style table with the old Singer erected.

I picked up a sewing machine table today at the local Goodwill store. Cost about what it would have off ebay, but I did not have to pay postage and I got another sewing machine with it. It replaces the old TV tray table plus shelf I was using.

The library table closed

With the machine retracted into the table it just looks like a simple library table. I may get a piece of glass cut to put fit top of it so I can use it as a writing table too.

The machine that came with it is a 750 Singer Touch & Sew. I will have to find the time to check it out and service it if worthwhile. Then I will have to decide which zig-zag machine to keep and which to sell or give away. I will retain the White Fair Lady straight stitch in any case.

I know I have not written anything here in a while, and want to apologize to my readers. It is simply a matter of not having enough time, energy, and money to keep up with all my hobbies all the time. I am now taking a class at the university as well. My intention was to set up a separate blog for each of my main hobbies, and do at least a post a week. This was the first of them, and I guess the lack of posts here proves that was not really a viable idea.

About all I have done was mend a seam or two, so nice not having to do that by hand anymore. I finally got a belt that fit the Singer. Only it was plastic not rubber, seemed to be for use with cogged pulleys. In short, it slips. What I wound up doing for a temporary fix is use a couple of pieces of bicycle tube patch to repair the cracks on the back of the old belt. That seems to be working OK for the time being. I have several other projects I have to spend money on so it will be awhile before I try to get another belt. I do think the plastic belt might work on the White, it has a cogged belt, I have not checked to see if they are the same size.

I will be taking a class at the local University this semester so that will be taking up some of my time also. And people think I just sit here in my apartment watching TV. I have not even turned the TV on since before Christmas. I guess it is good that I do not have much money to spend on my hobbies, if I did I would be running around like a dervish.

Dress shirts seem to be a place that is worthwhile from a price as well as a fit point of view. A decent man’s dress shirt costs $30-$50 or more . Unless you are an guy who had no problem with off the rack fit, few of us guys are so lucky, you either have to make your own shirts or buy custom shirts if you want proper fit.

As best as I can tell with out actually having done it yet, it looks like there is about an hours labor in making a shirt once you know what you are doing. Of course that means there is four or five hours each involved before getting to that point –going by the old 20/80% rule. So once I am skilled at it, I should be able to make a custom fitted $100 shirt for an hour’s labor and about three yards of decent shirting fabric.

I am still awaiting a belt for the Singer. Murphy’s Law seems to apply to getting drive belts mail order. First place I ordered it from canceled the order. Second place sent me a belt that was too small, no not the wrong size, but one that seem to be between sizes. Now I am waiting for them to get in a new shipment of belts.

Inexpensive Sewing Machine Table

It consists of a folding TV Tray Table from Walmart and a 4 foot shelf from the local Lowes store. I thought I would have to bolt them together, but the weight of the sewing machine seems to be all that is needed. I have it set up in front of one of my bedroom windows where I have good light during the day.

I have seen some nice looking old Singer Library table type cabinets on eBay, but they always go beyond what I can afford on my limited income. I do come across them at the local thrift stores sometimes but they are usually pretty beat up. This temporary lash up will allow me to wait until something nice shows up.