Candy Floss

What can I say? It's red, blue, key lime pie green, light green, orange and probably another couple of colors, that I don't remember.......
That said, this 1960's Japanese straight stitcher will happily munch its way through 6 layers of Sunbrella, most any other upholstery fabric andn set up properly, will also sew 1/4" of soft vegetable tanned leather. Tough! Then when you're done with that, it will sew all regular fabrics and not really notice the difference.

The Fabulous Miss Coral

Playing with paint, The fabulous Miss Coral:
Kenmore shipped this clone in the usual black, sometime in the 1950s. By the time it got to me it had all the usual finish issues (and then some). So I decided to refurbish it and give it some 50's flair and sophistication with a two-tone coral and chestnut paint job in a faux alligator skin case.
I like the results. I think that she is, as the French would say, "une mademoiselle, trez chic"

What should I feed my baby Kenmore?

What should I feed my baby Kenmore?
 I found this cute little Kenmore 158.104 in a thrift store. I thought to myself, maybe, I should do a Kenmore family portrait with Miss Coral, and Lou (the Locksmith) freearm standing in for parents. It's a tough little machine with a double reduction drive and I can hardly wait to see what it grows up into.
The question that troubles me though, is what do I feed it?

Key Lime Pie

 Key Lime Pie. It's funny how your vices can gang up on you in the most surprising ways. For example, I have this vice on hot summer days... yummy Key Lime Pie with whipped cream. Then I have this all year round vice called vintage sewing machine addiction. I never expected those two things would ever connect... Until I came in to a paint color called Key Lime green......... Pie anyone?

supervisors.....Always we got supervisors..

Can't seem to avoid supervisors....even at home. Here for example, is Alice, who is our QA manager here at Flamingo Sewing, hard at work, supervising the re-assembly of this 221.

Singer never made any red 221's (or green or blue or yellow ones). So any red ones you see, have been repainted. Singer tended to be stodgy in their color choices. The only color options they offered were the traditional black, tan and mint green. You had to know, that that just wouldn't  last....Someone was going to custom paint one red and show it to their friends.........
You can buy them online now, in just about any color you you can imagine. If you are willing to fork over a lot of money, and wait six months, you can get them painted in whatever color you personally prefer. You can even get ones with hand painted flowers on them. What a change!
This one is for sale, and I wouldn't mind if the buyer traded in a black one. I have sone ideas involving yellow paint and black decals.....

Playing with paint: the tritone clone

Playing with paint: The Tritone clone. I learned to drive during the muscle car era, and fell in love with hot rods and wild paint jobs early. So, when I came into this Kenmore "high performance", 1.2 amp, and decided to myself an upholstery sewer, it just had to be a Hot Rod paint job....I really couldn't help myself you see, the motor was a sickly green, and the clone was a blaaah blue.......

Playing with paint: Science fiction and sewing machines: The Red Nebula.
 A customer asked for a treadle head in a red and black ombre pattern. So I started spraying with a red rattle can in one hand and black in the other in search of inspiration. The blackness put me in mind of outer space, and the title of a short story I read one time in Astounding or one of the other golden age science fiction pulps.
As I recall the covers of those often featured a space suited hero, rescuing the scantily clad heroine from the clutch of a bug eyed monster. Since my customer liked the name and the outer space vibe, I asked if she would like a tiny space ship or two, or maybe even a BEM, but, being way too young and beautiful to have ever read those magazines, she just gave an odd look and politely declined........sigh