Pfaff Hobby 307 - my new baby sweet machine....

Yes, I  know. I DO have enough sewing machines to outfit a small sewing school. And yes, I do NOT sew on them all very often, or even sew very often really. I am a slow sewer and I often just play with the machines. I do love them. So - this is the second find my hubby made at the Saint Vincent de Paul Thrift store on the trip out west. It seems the thrift stores out in the Seattle area are repositories of nice older machines, as are the pawn shops. Who knew? You could wait 100 years around here for a thrift store to have even a tenth of the nice machines you can get out there. Good thing too, or I would need a new wing on the house. This machine is so close to my heart. It rounds out a nice set of Pfaffs living with us now. After just a cursory clean with a damp cloth, it was in fine shape, and from my testing and looking around in the bobbin area and so on, there is nothing to suggest it was used more than two or three times. All the original accessories were with it, including the original manual, which looks pristine. I found it in PDF online so I printed that out and won't bend the original manual. I know - again - strange. Anyway, I love this thing. It sews like a charm, is very heavy and solid and although not made in Germany by Pfaff, was apparently made to specs that give us a really nice solid mechanical machine with a nice stitch package for most ordinary needs. NOW - here is the best part.

This baby does FMQ like a charm. I had been looking at various Hobby machines of this vintage, as well as Hobbymatics and Varimatics - mostly on the Brubaker Sewing site, and I just never found the one I wanted. Brubaker's has so many nice machines and is always worth a call for your Pfaff needs. So, when he called and told me he was looking at this machine, and it was in a case (not a Pfaff case, but a nifty all purpose solid case like the Brother or Singer plastic hard-shell case with bottom) I was smitten sight unseen. The next day was a 50% off day, so back he went and picked up this and the Elna. It has been a good machine year. My plan is to use this machine for free motion quilting if the projects are not too large for the harp. It has quite a high harp, so that shouldn't really be too much trouble. It uses my vertical Elna darning foot well, as you can see, and I also bought it a really nice free motion foot from Mr.Vac and Mrs. Sew. I purchased this through AMAZON, and had it in two days! Amazing service. The foot is solid and very easy to get on and I love the large open ring and the all metal foot.

This machine is from that transitional period where machines were part metal and part plastic. So the casing is both, and the weight, well a nice substantial one, is not a back breaker like an all metal machine. It has a vertical bobbin, and takes snap on feet, but is a bit wider in the feed dogs and feet than the usual 5mm vertical machine, so some of the Janome drop in feet work fine on it, and it takes Janome bobbins. I bought it the new blue ones. It came with the most clever zipper foot I have ever seen. It is a combo regular and invisible zipper foot. OH so clever.

The feed dogs drop for darning and FMQ. The stitch package is just a basic set of 8 (they call it 7 because the straight stitch is variable to a narrow to wide ZZ) stitches, but you can vary the length and you have a nice 4 step buttonhole that I like very much. I love the control of a four step buttonhole. There is a setting on the length control dial for S.S. - stretch stitching. Those stitches are in purple and you select the stitches merely by turning the stitch dial to the picture of the stitch. The manuals for most Pfaffs are available on the Pfaff website now, which is really nice. There is a nice large tension dial and unfortunately no presser foot pressure adjustment on this machine. I cannot say that is a huge drawback for me anyway.  In future I will report back as to how the machine handles the free motion. I am about to work up to the end of a quilt I am making, and I intend to use the 307 to quilt it! Looking forward to the fun.  If you run across any of these older models of Pfaff Hobby machines, I think you can't go wrong. Meanwhile, the Elna TOP 300 is in for a spa treatment and a fix of a few minor issues.

Elna TOP 300 for more machine fun...

Machines. They are so siren song loaded. I have just been gifted with two more of the type of machine I love - the bottom line of a good brand. The first one is an Elna TOP 300, which proves elusive to find info and pictures of here in the US, as all the pics I can find are in Europe or Australia and New Zealand. I think the Elnas were not sold here nearly as much in the early 90s, or late 80s. This machine does date back to the early 90s, and looked like a wreck in the thrift shop. I saw it is the Seattle area in May, but passed on it due to the looks and felt it wouldn't be worth taking home. But my hubby returned from his trip out West with this in tow. Apparently all the parts that they could remove they had removed and had at the counter, including the bobbin area cover and the feet. It was missing the regular sewing foot - Zigzag foot. And the original owner had never removed the protective film from the from as you should upon opening the box and removing the machine! SO it had a ratty look from bits of the film coming loose and so on. After some work with Goo-Gone and warm moist dishcloth the looks were improved radically, and then I saw that someone had somehow crimped the shank oddly and I needed a ZZ foot anyway. Having a family of machines of the same general manufacturer comes in handy, as I had an extra shank or two I wasn't using from Janomes, and a foot as well. Luckily one of the shanks and feet fit and I don't need them for other machines, so now she has a new foot and a new shank. As to sewing. The stitch selection dial is a bit wonky, as the detents are no longer lining up perfectly with the numbers, but that isn't relaly too much of a problem. You can, and I always do anyway, do a test stitching first, so if you didn't put it on the correct stitch you will soon realize that. It sews nicely and with the correct shank uses Janome feet of course, as it is a Janome made Elna. Janome shanks do differ among models now too. This one use the red button shank as does my Janome 11510 (Kenmore 19110). I tried all the stitches and made a buttonhole. I do like 4 step buttonholes and this baby does a nice one. I may rehome this machine in months to come, as I have plenty of machines, but it is really an appealing machine with useful stitches. If you should come across one in the St. Vincent De Paul store near you, don't be afraid. This one sat on the shelf there for almost a full 5 months unwanted and unloved. Now she is clean and working and much happier. I may not have mentioned that the little wick under the bobbin case needed a drop of oil. That's it, although there are two places inside the cover in the workings as well, and those are now oiled too. This is an all mechanical machine.

Cloned McCalls 2208 from Lutterloh Shirt...

My modification of a Lutterloh basic shirt pattern to emulate McCalls 2208. Unfortunately the pattern itself was so difficult to try and alter to fit me that I just decided to modify the neckline of my TNT Lutterloh shirt to look like the McCalls. It didn't take too much. I cut a nice facing for the entire neckline after folding back the neckline of the Lutterloh pattern and tracing the resultant neckline from the bottom of one edge to the bottom of the other. I had to make a back facing and two front to shoulder facings. Made them nice and wide and that was a good idea. Sewed up well and fitting was good. I wanted it high enough to wear as a shirt or as a jacket. The buttons are nice shaded grey-brownish ones I got on sale at Joanns last year.
The fabric is postage stamps I got on sale several years ago at our wonderful local fabric shop now gone. A print like this requires a plain no-nonsense pattern if you don't want to look really busy. Here is the picture of the McCalls again to compare.  The neckline is a bit lower than I wanted mine to be, and I think the whole project turned out well. I have also finished the tropical print skirt but no pictures yet. I am behind in my pics-for-blogging. Have been working on the quilt as well, and finished all the blocks.

Paper Pieced Strips and Sewing Plans...

Right now, the project I am starting is a Strip Quilt which my Craftsy class with Pepper Cory calls the Phone Book Quilt. But I don't want to use phone book paper and I wanted 12x12 inch blocks, so I cut them from tracing paper with a matte finish, which is very light and removable when the time comes. So far I have several blocks - it is addicting and fun to strip paper piece them. I have the fabric already - my quilting stash isn't huge, but it will make several quilts I am sure! So, this one will be 6' by 5' when done and a bit more for the binding. Half dark and half light blocks diagonally.  I may have to cut more strips but that's O.K. I have the materials to do that. I am taking my time.

In the meantime, I may just cut out this McCall's pattern. I have admired it for a long time, and finally bought it - it dates from the late 90s I think, but they still have it for sale in the stores. I can see why as it is very basic. I love that the neckline is not encumbered with a collar, and that it could be adapted to either a top or a jacket. No law against making longer sleeves either. Might even try that pants pattern.  I have fabric for the top as a top, not a jacket, and I do not have fabric for matching pants, although I could of course buy some. Time will be the constraint here, as I really like working on the quilts better now. Plans, though, we must have plans. Always better to have lots in mind to do than nothing at all to occupy our minds. Happy Sewing!