Thrift store score sewing cabinet

I went thrifting yesterday, and bought myself a new sewing machine cabinet!  This is certainly a much nicer cabinet than the one Camster came in, so I am quite happy ...

My new sewing cabinet (thrift store find)

For those of y'all squinting at the pic and wondering ... yes, that is a foot pedal and power cord hooked up to a machine inside the cabinet!  This is what was tucked inside:

A Singer 620 Golden Touch & Sew

One Google search confirmed my suspicions ... this is one of the infamous Singer "Cuss & Throw" machines that a few people love and so many more hate.  I had to clip loose a decently-tangled thread nest to get the needle unstuck out of its throat plate.  I have no idea how the bobbin comes out of it, and the manual for it is missing.  However, the reason I fussed yesterday about taping the drawers shut at the store while the rain turned to hail is here:

Three boxes of accessories for the Singer 620 Golden

It has cams, a buttonholer, cleaning stuff ... also inside the drawers are old spools of thread (30 cents each!), safety pins, seam rippers, tracing wheels, a couple pin cushions, a sewing basket ... even a piece of blue poly-feeling fabric.

I'll probably put the machine and its attachments up for sale or trade.  I have no desire to rassle with a manual-less machine with such a reputation.  I am certain somewhere there is a Singer fan who wants it (or maybe needs parts?) but that sure isn't me.  Note: If you are interested in this Singer plus the three accessory boxes of stuff, leave me a comment or hit me up at Pattern Review.  I have every intention of putting my most-used computerized Brother up on the cabinet, because that is what I figure I bought.

I will say that clearing a space for the cabinet then getting home and in the house have wiped me out.  I even vacuumed the carpet this morning in anticipation of my new cabinet.  It looks nice and holds up the "leaning tower of bookcase" better than the box of cast iron.

I am in LOVE

I don't think hubby will mind at all ... I finally got brave enough to take Camster for a spin and WOW!  The difference between her and old Anchor are like night and day.  Here she is, all "loaded up for bear" as the saying goes:

Kenmore 1803 Camster loaded up and running

The focus is a bit funny in the pic, so I labelled the little seam allowance magnet ... it was still clinging faithfully to Anchor when I opened him up.  I can't use it on my computerized Brothers, and I haven't even tried it on poor Timex.

Ya know, if I had sewed on something like Camster instead of Anchor as a kid, I might have stuck with it instead of thinking I was a failure at sewing (Anchor still has way too much "get-up-n-go" off the line, as I discovered with the linen hat).

A couple random notes: I pulled a plastic bobbin out of Camster's holder ... at her age I don't think she ought to be playing with little plastic things.  It also didn't look like the metal ones that were in a plastic baggie that came with her, which makes me wonder if this is why she ended up in a garage sale with a paltry $10 price tag on her.  All the metal bobbins had who-knows-how-old thread on them so I had to unwind one to reload ... which drew an audience of cats who seemed to be amused that I was doing it "wrong" and they probably could have done it faster ...

One reason I took so long to fire Camster up is Mom told (ordered) me to not mess with her until I read the manual, because this is still a very nice machine ... and I have no doubt Mom would hop into her car and come confiscate it from me faster than I confiscated Camster from Dad's wife.  I'm pretty sure there is still a drool-stain on the corner of the cabinet from when Mom inspected it before letting me abscond with it.

I can't believe just how quiet Camster is, especially after giving Anchor a spin this summer.  Totally amazing both machines were on the shelf in Sears at the same time.  Last night I was asked if I'd be getting an "upper-end" machine anytime soon, and I replied I already have one (Camster).  Last night, I was joking ... today I am NOT joking about it.  If I could have found a heart-shape in Gimp, there would be little red hearts all over this pic of Camster!

Oh yeah, that is indeed my B5662 fitting muslin under her presser foot.  The seams are now stitched up, and I need to duct-tape cable ties and baste on a zipper and lacing panels now.  That will get its own post, though, probably after my appointment and errands ... or tomorrow.

Stitchin' it Old School

I figured today's "little" project would be easy once I got everything set up ... I thought wrong.  Last night I tucked Camster into her cabinet and folded it up, which makes it easy to see how she spent a year impersonating an end table, then broke out Timex, my ridiculously sturdy $80 WalMart Brother LX-3125.

Timex, my Brother LX-3125 mechanical

Timex is so named simply because he survived my first six months of sewing.  This is the little mechanical that could ... sew through poly boning both length-ways and cross-ways, go through an entire Elizabethan corset corded with hemp craft cord, and plow through through five layers of heavy drapery for my pirate coat.  I treated this poor little bottom-of-the-line plastic machine as if it was a heavy-duty industrial model ... and it still sews.  But this morning, Timex met his match ... my son's "papa-san" chair.

I tried to sew using upholstery thread, a topstitching needle ... and probably too many layers of fabric.  So I am resorting to hand-stitching this thing back together.  When I was up in Indiana, I managed to find a pair of Machingers gloves recommended to me a few months ago by Nay, an avid quilter who also has done bridal sewing and gave me all kinds of useful advice on sewing my silk charmeuse tunic.  These do help grip the needle for pulling it through the layers, but don't protect me from accidentally putting the needle point up and under my thumbnail.

So I have one corner fixed, halfway through the other, and still one more to go.  Then I have the fun of putting the "pillows" pieces back in right.

Something unusual from last night: my usually camera-shy Cuddle Kitty posed just long enough for me to snap a pic of him.  This time, he wasn't posing on the new Camster cabinet (I have been shooing him and the Terrorist Kitty off that cabinet since I set it up!) or a pile of fabric.  So I now have a cute pic of my only skinny cat:

my camera-shy Cuddle Kitty

Now y'all know where the darker cat hair comes from ...

Kenmore 148.12190 anchor

This morning I mentioned my (new-to-me) Kenmore 1803 Camster wasn't the heaviest thing to follow me home from Indiana ... even with its lovely wood cabinet.  Let me introduce y'all to my heaviest aircraft carrier anchor ... err .. sewing machine.  Interestingly enough, it's also the one I have technically owned the longest.

Kenmore 148.12190 sewing Anchor

Yes, I have indeed named this poor bedraggled machine "the Anchor" just as the other sleek and beautiful Kenmore 1803 is officially now named "the Camster".  (Wait until I introduce Timex ...)  I managed to clean off the surface ick enough to snap a pic, but there will be no sewing until it gets an official inner clean and servicing.  Honestly, I cannot recall sewing on this thing for at least twenty years.

Yeah, twenty years ... my Mom brought this home for my tenth birthday back in 1983 when it was traded in at the Sears store she worked at and none of the other employees were interested in it.  Mom says two things about that: 1) She only paid $5 for it at the time, and 2) I was (once again) disappointed because it was not the horse I asked for each year starting with my 5th birthday.  My comment to Mom today was that at the time she gave it to me, the Anchor weighed more than I did.  After she had a good laugh at that, Mom agreed.

By some strange twist of fate, this has to be the clearest pic I've posted in quite a while here ... for a machine given to me 28 years ago and has been missing/misplaced/hiding for at least the last dozen years.

When I remarked to Mom over the phone today about how amazing I find it that both the Camster and the Anchor were sitting in Sears store at the same time, Mom informed me that the Camster was considered top-of-the-line at that time ... while the Anchor was considered low-end ("bottom-of-the-line") and their prices were inversely related to their weights.

Oh last note: Mom couldn't recall who made the "148." machines ... so I googled.  Then I tried Bing, Yahoo, and even Wikipedia out of desperation.  Finally got an answer over at PatternReview's message board from member FrBasil, who informs me that a company called Soryu made it for the Kenmore brand.  Another public thank you for that!

Hey Google: Soryu manufactured the 148.12190 for Kenmore.  I'm still peeved that I couldn't find that out just by googling no matter what search phrase I tried ...

So between the three of us 1973 year models ... the Anchor is definitely still the worse for the wear.  The Camster still looks the best for her age.  And I am somewhere in the middle of the two.  LOL

In-cabinet Kenmore 1803 Cam-ster

I finally got it some floor space and set it up and got a somewhat-clear (for me!) photo ... so here she is ... the largest piece of loot brought home from Indiana (although not the heaviest - that is another post).  This little beauty is from Dad's wife, not Mom ... Mom would have never given this up as she had one back in the 1970s that she loved and had stolen out of her car.  A pic for the visually inclined ... then a typical wall-of-text to tell the story:

In-cabinet Kenmore 1803 with most of its accessories

Isn't she pretty?  Dad's wife found her at a garage sale over a year ago, minus cams and a few accessories, told it didn't work anymore, but the manual and most of the feet came with her in the cabinet which is in beautiful condition.  Now, for the part that will make most of us eat our spleen with envy ... she got it for only ten dollars!  Afterwards, she took it in for a service and tune-up, after which the "Kenny" worked again.  So, price at garage sale plus $40 for servicing ... still only $50 in this beauty ... and when she told me about it last year when I was up there I am sure I turned a sickly bile green because somehow I never seem to hit the right garage sales to find something like this.

When I mentioned to Mom someone I knew had a 1803 but not the cams ... Mom spent a total of 4 minutes digging up the box of cams for it.  So last June when I took the cams over, I told Dad and his wife that if it didn't get used in a year's time I would claim the machine.  And so it came home with me this year, after about 54 weeks of serving as a pretty end table because it folds up so neatly into the perfect size for that.

The handwriting on the front of the manual includes the date "1973" so that means this lovely machine is as old as I am.  Mom was in Kentucky and southern Indiana that year ... but it is possible that Mom had the original owner of this machine in one of her sewing classes at Sears a few years later if she kept coming to classes.

I've had to promise Mom I will read the manual before attempting to sew on this old cam-ster, so that will need to wait until the rest of the loot is unpacked and put away.  If it runs as good as it looks, Mom says I will absolutely love its stitching.  She loved hers up until she got the then-new 1914 to replace hers (which she still uses regularly).  Oh, the official model number handwritten on the front of the manual says 158.18032 ... which Mom informs me means it was manufactured by Brother .... which keeps up my "Band of Brothers" motif in machines.