B for bastard

Violent nature - Iceland, March 2024

Photo by: nature-hiking  

My wife said that she just has an unshakable faith in our ability to fix things. And I guess we do often fix stuff and she has limited understanding of the variety of skillsets needed for that. So that makes sense.

I think probably it’s a common tho not universal image for young kids to have of their caregivers.

Anyways I think this should be used a lot more in stories about necromancy. Because if she brought me a dead pet or whatever and asked me to fix it and had just so much faith that I could do it, and I thought there was any chance I could do it it’d be “ok honey let’s go see if we can find some forbidden books at the library. Maybe we can get doughnuts after”

Say no more, here they all are! (I post about them more on my sewing & art blog @vincentbriggs, though I'm afraid I haven't got proper tags for each individual machine.)

c. 1885 White VS2, made in the U.S. Basic straight stitch treadle in good working order. It came to me very dirty and needed a lot of cleaning and a new drive belt & bobbin winder tire.

Singer 15-91, made in Canada sometime between 1936-48. This was my first one, which I bought refurbished when I moved out of my parents house, since it's pretty similar to the one I grew up using. It came with a knee lever but after a few years the speed control box failed and I replaced it with a foot pedal.

1945 Bernina KL 105, made in Switzerland. This is my most recent acquisition and I haven't started on the cleaning & refurbishing yet, but I'm excited to use it! It's a treadle that has backstitch and drop feed.

Gimbels department store branded Singer 15 clone, made in Japan. No idea what the date is, but the style of the logo makes me think maybe 50's? All cleaned and stitching again, though I still need to put the motor back on. The case was too rotten to save, so I've got to learn how to make a new one. Being a 15 clone, it's extremely similar to my Singer 15, but there are quite a lot of differences in the smaller external parts and it has a much better drop feed system.

1958 Singer 99k, made in Scotland. All cleaned and adjusted, and my father helped rewire it, but I still need to finish fixing up the wooden case. It wasn't so bad as the previous one, but it's in no condition to stain so I'm going to paint it. This one's something of a foster kitten, as I've promised it to a friend.

1964 Singer 185J, made in Canada. I've cleaned it up and replaced the missing bobbin plate, but I need to make a new wooden case for this one too because the plastic case it came in was all cracked and warped. It's the same basic machine as the 99k, just in a more space age style shape. The bobbin winder is more stripped down, but other than that the workings are identical.

1970 Pfaff 360, made in Germany. This was the second machine I got, and it was meant to be a backup because this was when my 15-91 speed control was acting up. The pebbled greige paint job is horrendously fugly, but it's a splendid piece of engineering. I still need to get around to taking apart and unsticking one particular area, but if I'm successful in that it'll be able to do zig zag, plus a variety of other fancy stitches controlled by that nice stack of cams on the left.

The 2 treadles were given to me, the 15-91 was bought refurbished as mentioned, and the other 4 electric machines were thrifted.

sketches, color studies(kind of?)

Tall and elongated

Flabby

Weak brain

Soft, spongy exterior

Random bits that stick out

Limited sensory capacity

Collapses under regular atmospheric pressure

Frighteningly permeable

Lacks vocal range

Contraction-based movement (weird)