Sew, sew, sew your boat.......

Sew, sew, sew your boat.  I know.  Bad joke.  But let me tell you, after messing with my "new" sewing machine ALL THE LIVE-LONG DAY, my brain was going a bit nutty.

For those of you who follow us on Facebook, you know that we bought a new-to-us sewing machine last week......a 1957 Pfaff, to be precise.  I've heard fantastic things about this beast, so David found one on craigslist.org just down the road in California, Maryland (who knew there was such a town?!).  After I met Chris in the parking lot of Joann Fabrics and bought the machine, I wandered into the store, bought two pillow forms and a yard of all-weather fabric to make QUICK, EASY pillows for our cockpit.

Quick.  Easy.  Not so much.

Rewind back to October 2014 when I sold my nearly new Janome sewing machine (on craigslist no less!) thinking that it couldn't tackle sails.  Boo-hoo!  It could've handled canvas and all sorts of heavy fabrics (minus sails) and I wouldn't have had the day-long frustration of figuring out the tension on this machine.

Thankfully, I recently joined a Facebook group called Sewing on Boats (SOBs for short ;) ).  Once I posted my tension frustration and a photo, I quickly received MANY suggestions for fixing this problem.  Three hours and several suggestions later, I got it all worked out, and the pillows were finished.

The Pfaff 130-6, built in 1957

The case wasn't in good shape, but "we" saved it to make a pattern for a new one (personally, I would try Gorilla Glue to put it back together........)

I have the original owner's manual and applied a drop of oil (complete with Zoom Spout) to every crevasse mentioned in the booklet.

Threaded correctly....

From RIGHT to LEFT, my tension was getting better, but not correct (black thread was inserted in the bobbin at one suggestion which was a good one......proving that the top thread was not behaving).

It's a good thing there was a lot of spare material.

Close, but no cigar.  This is the photo I posted on Sewing on Boats.

As you can see in the lower left, I FINALLY found the sweet spot for tension.....it involved a new needle and an adjustment of the thread controller spring.

In the process, a needle broke.

But in the end, I won........the tension worked out and we have two new pillows for the cockpit.

Hopefully for my next two projects (grill cover and dinghy engine cover) everything will go much more smoothly!