Sunday, April 6, 2014

Meet my new vintage machine

Meet Leona!  When I met my cousin Liz at her mom's house (my Aunt Eileen aka Godmother and Dad's only sister) a few weeks ago, she put this machine in my car, along with about 4 large bags of fabric and some quilts she wanted finished.  These are all from Leona, Liz's mother-in-law, who passed away last August, 2013.  Leona was a quilter and teacher, and had owned a fabric store.  She was one of the founding members of the Long Island Quilter's Society, and was still listed as an honorary board member on the show program, where I entered my first time, on March 22 and 23, 2014.

Liz had asked me to finish one of Leona's quilts for her (see this post.)  I have another, plus more scraps, and 3 more quilts to finish.  I'll share those later, but today I worked on the machine.  It's the first nice day in a while, and I wanted to put the final coats of polyurethane on the top of the Trapezoid case, and this cabinet is currently in the garage.  Since machines are sensitive to the cold, I wanted to get this in the house to work on it.



Leona, the Singer, is a 1937 15 class machine.  The cabinet is in poor shape, and will need to be stripped and sanded, but I happen to enjoy doing that.  I'm thinking I can just sand and refinish the body, but the top will need more work, as will the front.




In the meantime, I got the machine out of the cabinet, and worked on her for a bit, as well.  



My favorite part?? The decals are really pretty, and in good shape.  Look at the center part!!


I LOVE the bird, and the filligree style edge.  It's very pretty.  So, part of the clean up involves getting the tape off, and removing the residual glue.  I tried a mixture of vinegar and baking soda, and used the resulting paste to scrub the glue off.  I'm soaking the remaining tape in sewing machine oil, and will work on it again later.  After I get the machine cleaned, I'll take it in to Pocono Sew & Vac for them to clean and check the mechanical parts, and I need to locate a bobbin case and bobbins.  I may have one, so I'll need to check my supply drawer, and if it needs the Class 15 Bobbins, I already have quite a few.  I did take the needle plate off, and removed quite a bit of very old lint.  I'll show more progress later, but that lighter section of residual glue above the bird is gone, as is most of the tape.

So, check back in a few weeks to see how Leona's doing.  I'm hoping she'll be happy here.  My Minnesota treadle is the oldest machine I have.  Leona is next, then the Featherweight, and the New Westinghouse and the 15-91 in the Trapezoid cabinet.  I didn't intentionally start out building a collection of vintage machines, but I'm really having fun with them.

2 comments:

thebutterflyquilter said...

She is going to be a beauty once you clean her up!

Uniquely Yours Creations said...

That's a beauty of a machine! I can't wait to see the cabinet finished!