What’s the issue with my Singer 15?

EDIT: SOLVED! I had the needle in backwards! Thank you to Helen Howes and others who suggested that fix. Don’t be fooled by all the youtube videos that say to put the needle in with the flat side to the right. On some older Singer 15s, such as mine, the flat side goes to the LEFT.

ORIGINAL MESSAGE: Hello Treadle Friends and Singer 15 fans in particular. What’s the issue here? I’ve heard of timing being off. Is that what this is? If so…how do I fix it? If it’s some other problem…same question. Advice appreciated.

Thank you all!

Where the needle ends up if I turn the wheel—see, it’s touching metal!

Chain stitch woes

Standard Rotary friends, please help! WHAT is going on with Jazzy? I really love her. She’s SUCH an amazing, powerful, precise and gorgeous machine. And yet, she gives me fits when I try to use her chain stitch attachment. One of the reasons I was so excited about her was the ability to do chain stitch embroidery, sans hefting around another machine head. :) What is going on here? Why is the thread tangling? What can I do to fix it? Very grateful for any and all suggestions. Thank you!

Look what I made!!!

Men’s banyan, my very first treadle sewing project.

I’m soooo proud of this. There’s something about treadles. I know everyone says that who uses them. But it’s true! Put me in front of an electric machine, and I can make you a shoddy garment really fast. But put me in front of a treadle, and I can make you a beautiful (albeit flawed) garment slowly that’s worth oohing, aahing and sighing over. Treadles are way better and WAY more fun!

It took weeks. WEEKS! But I did it! Lookeeeee! I made this! What a fun ride. I learned a lot. And I kept changing my mind. I cut out not one but THREE robe patterns before finally sewing it up. And no…it’s not really a robe. It’s a BANYAN. Or lounge coat. What have you.

You see, there’s this really fabulous (ugh!) microfiber duvet on our bed that my husband just loves. I never thought I would love something made of polyester, but…it’s true. I love it too. So when I started to joke around about making him a green velvet robe (green is his favorite color) that duvet kept creeping into my mind. Plus, I could get a load of the fabric (in the form of a queen sized duvet) for fairly cheap. A 96x102 inch piece of said velvet equals roughly 3 yards, cuttable into nice large pieces.

It’s the Tribeca Venice Velvet Duvet in emerald green, in case you’re interested. Despite being poly, weirdly, it isn’t hot. It’s comfy, it breathes and it’s perfect. But I digress. First things first. I went to get an ugly pattern. This one, to be precise.

The ugly robe that never was. I mean…how BORING can you get.

You have to agree—this boring, straight-sided pattern would have been an utter WASTE of that gorgeous fabric. And besides, velvet needs to be lined (it’s not comfy on the inside) and since the original velvet is plain, the lining would have to be…patterned. I started by looking for a green paisley. My husband loves warm colors. Ideally (because it would be my treat to look at him in it) he would be wearing his lovely green robe that matches the bed, and it would be lined with a gorgeous rust-colored paisley flannel. If that existed. Alas…it did not. So I went to the fabric store and settled for a nice green plaid. Not the oozy gooey thing I had in mind, but hey, it was my first treadle project, so let’s not get too ambitious, right? (Right…)

MEET VIVIAN.

It all started with Vivian.

Well actually, it all started with her cabinet.

Well, actually, it started with her cabinet.

All I had planned to do was clean out my sewing closet and put in a proper table. Of course…once I got the table (look what a beauty!) I could not resist putting a machine inside it—I mean, what’s the point of empty space in the belly? And just look at that wood. Is that the most gorgeous treadle cabinet you’ve ever seen? It’s definitely the most gorgeous one I’ve seen.

Cat in the box!

Of course, every time the lid opens, the cat has to go in. The funniest part is when he’s just emerging—but of course I wasn’t camera-ready for that. :)

THE PROBLEM, after cutting out said boring robe pattern in both the green plaid flannel and the gorgeous green velvet—was that Vivian would NOT sew it. She liked the flannel just fine, but she absolutely refused to sew a layer of flannel and a layer of velvet. I tried multiple settings and almost gave up. In the meantime, the bag of cut out pattern parts went further into the back of the closet while I entertained whimsies of “proper” gentlemen’s robes such as kimonos and banyans. Besides, I detest tissue paper patterns. I do better by conjuring, measuring and cutting, while skipping the tissue paper altogether. Besides I can never figure out how to put it together—all the weird shaped little pieces never make sense. Yes, I do have spatial ability—it just runs off whenever tissue paper patterns are present.

Okay, very unfair to call the robe above “boring.” But come on, how silly could I have been to waste a giant piece of sumptuous velvet on THAT?

The next thing I knew, I was watching this youtube and ordering a second duvet. :)

Credit to Shannon Makes on youtube

And it has TASSELS! Now THAT’S more like it.

So I cut out the full pattern (having measured David twice…you know what they say!) and then decided…it needed a bit of something else. The robe pattern in the videos is beautiful but appears to be worn over clothing. Knowing David, it will need to be able to close in front as he will, in all likelihood, wear it right over his birthday suit. It wouldn’t be very warm if it just hung open in front. Velvet and flannel are, after all, designed to be warm.

And then, it occurred to me that he’ll want to use his arms while he’s wearing it, so maybe the kimono sleeves, for him, aren’t that practical.

And then, I see a youtube that would have been so simple to cut out and make in the first place.

Another source of inspiration

And then, we return to what I’d ORIGINALLY wanted to make, before I tried to go and make something “simple” in the first place.

This wool damask banyan makes me drool.

NOW we’re talking. And we’ve come full circle. Originally, I’d envisioned making him a banyan. Once the Stede Bonnet robe was cut out, I realized it needed those nifty triangular inserts to be more swishy. And the collar needed to go all the way down so it would have more wrappability. After all, if it’s going to be a lounge robe, it should sort of double as a blanket, or at least make a blanket redundant. And so, I cut out extra pieces, recut the sleeves (in a different size) and decided to line it in this gorgeous gray paisley Italian organic cotton I’d had laying around for years from a whimsical trip to Britex. I’m sure it was $40 a yard. I think originally I wanted to make a cape out of it…but…flannel? Not really cape material. It was always meant to be a banyan I guess.

So, in the meantime (yes really!) I acquired TWO more sewing machines.

MEET JAZZY.

This is Jazzy, my super snazzy new Standard Rotary Treadle. What a beauty!

My hope was that Jazzy wouldn’t be so finicky as Vivian turned out to be. Turns out she’s a champ, and she lives up to her name. But…we had a learning process. Observe the seams below. First, she resembled Vivian and didn’t really want to sew velvet. The crinkly seams are after I made the stitch tiny, but hadn’t figured out how to loosen the tension enough yet. And those seams were TIGHT! They CANNOT be unpicked…the fabric tears before the seam will come out. So I left them be. After all, it’s a lounge garment.

By the end, I had things dialed in (or out, rather) nicely, and the seams (like around the sleeves) are perfect and flat.

Now, about Pearl. I’d mentioned in the previous post that she’s been treadled—and Vivian is now sitting on the floor! The injustice. The truth was, I found this fabulous fat piping at a local thrift store and absolutely needed a zipper (or piping) foot to sew it on. Except that then…Pearl started shocking me! So off the motor came, and onto Vivian’s cabinet she was fitted. Truth be told, she was sitting atop Vivian’s cabinet anyway. But before figuring out the shock part and setting her up treadled, I (ugh!) hand sewed the fat piping into the collar. It’s all puckery, but hey, it’s attached now!

If you look, you will also notice other mistakes, such as when I attached the lining of the extra swishy collar extenders the wrong way round, and couldn’t reverse them because I was still using teeny stitches and it ripped the fabric, so I had to adapt and change the pattern. Oh well…it’s like a living reminder of all the fun.

After treadling, Pearl helped me out with attaching the pockets with a zigzag here and there. Totally not necessary, just fun. And treadle Pearl attached the final fringes on the ends of the sash belt—after I broke Jazzy’s needle into THREE pieces by sewing over the wrong spot in the fringe. I guess I learned something there too.

Collar puckers, fat piping and a barely-veiled mistake

Another angle with tight, puckery seams (before hem is done, if you noticed!)

One more detail I’m proud of—the hook hanger is made of the same fat piping. :)

Anyway…I DID IT! Husband loves it, and I love it more, because it’s so nice to look at him wearing it. He looks and feels regal. And the sweep. This banyan ended up with a whopping TWELVE foot sweep! There’s plenty of room to wrap the cat, the dog and me up in there too. Call it a banyan, a robe, a traveling-cloak or a wearable blanket. Whatever you call it, it’s regal, it’s warm, it’s posh and delightful.

Pearl has been Treadled!

Pearl, my new Singer 223, has been treadled. She’s very happy.

A few weeks ago, I got another bout of the “the bug.” A super heavy duty midcentury Singer was being sold for a very reasonable price right near my house. So…I had to. Nevermind that I have how many sewing machines now? Too many. This one’s allure is the combination of:

• Being super duper wooper heavy duty

• Feed dogs go down easily

• Zigzag stitch

• Blind hem stitch

• SHE CAN BE TREADLED.

When I brought her home, I set her up on top of Vivian White’s cabinet, just like you see here, but with the lid down and Vivian tucked inside. But…in the middle of a project (see next blog post!) Pearl did something, ahem, “shocking.” I won’t go into details here—read the next blog post for that. But let’s just say—working with Pearl this way is like buttah. Smooth, soft and easy. What a treat.