Singer 29-4

We had a community yard sale last weekend and I made a landfill contribution on Friday.  I now have a clear path to my 29-4 Shoe Patcher.

  I picked this machine up at a local auction for $25 but would have paid $50 for someone to load it into my minivan for me - It is a MONSTER!  I was surprised to get the machine that sells in the $400 range on Ebay for such a low price, especially because it is treadle-operated and there were several Amish bidders in the house.
  The decals are not complete, but more prevalent than many because these machines were used in shoe factories and saw a lot of use.

  I took the machine home and put it in the storage shed, intending to get to it later - I never did.  When we moved to our present house four years ago, I put it in the garage and piled lawn furniture, bicycles, yard working equipment, and a table saw in front of it and have never dug it out to tinker with it.

  I hope it works because Kathie bought a carrying case for her Janome Jem

and one end of the zipper did not get caught in the sewing process.

I tried to repair it on a flatbed machine but just can't get the fabric to lay down flat enough to sew it.  I have tacked it by hand for now but would like to effect a permanent repair by machine and the 29 is the only machine I have that might do the job. It has a narrow free arm and the feeding foot rotates to feed the fabric in any direction.

Ed's Vintage Sewing Machine Shop

Janome Jem 639 and My New Favorite Cleaning Aid

  On my weekly stroll through the local thrift shop, I spotted a sweet little Janome Jem just waiting for me to take it home.  It appeared to be in good condition, the foot control, presser foot, and bobbin case were present so I picked it up in hopes that one of the local quilters would be willing to give me a little more than I paid for a lightweight machine to carry to sew-ins and classes.

  When I got it home, I found it was not just in good condition, it looks like it has never been used!  The sticker on top showing how to wind a bobbin was not even smudged.

  It needed no repairs or adjustments, it sews like right out of the box! The package of three needles that came with the machine is unopened.  The only attachment that came with it was a buttonhole foot, there probably should have been a zipper foot, at least.

  The one detracting feature was the price - written in magic marker on the plastic case.  In the past, I have used headlight lens restorer to remove magic marker from plastic but the headlight lens restorer was downstairs and I was upstairs, so I grabbed something else to try, a magic eraser.

  I had never used one of these but picked one up at the Dollar Store to clean our fiberglass shower stall.  It worked fine there, so I have been trying it out on other surfaces - tile grout, vinyl flooring, metal sewing machines - all with excellent results.  I was hesitant to use it on this shiny plastic machine, fearing it might leave scratches or leave a shadow of the Sharpie price mark.  It cleaned off the mark completely and left nary a scratch in the plastic.

 Now a word about Janome Customer Service. I emailed them asking for a copy of the 639 instruction manual.  Within 6 hours, I had a return email with a pdf attachment titled "639.pdf" but when I opened the file, it was for a 693, not a 639.  I emailed them again and within 6 hours had another return email with the proper instruction manual.  Thank you, Janome Customer Service.