Singer 201 Found

I have heard that the Singer 201 is a great machine with a very straight stitch.  

Some blogs say the best machine Singer has made.  

With all my machine problems, I thought it would a good model to try to find someday 

(especially since I have always wanted an old black Singer!).

Last Saturday, I went thrift shopping in a nearby town.  They have 3 thrift shops but it turns out one closes at 2:00 on Saturday's.  But I scored at the other 2.  At one, I found an old black Singer sewing machine in an oak cabinet.  I looked it over, and thought it looked interesting.  But I wasn't sure what it was, so decided to do some research.  The other is an old Wards and you can drop the feed dogs.  There is also a darning foot.  None of my current machines work well to try FMQ so I am hoping I might have a winner.  The main problem is the case is kind of papery and in very bad shape.  I will be looking at it more closely on Sunday.

So I did some research on my favorite old sewing machine blog - Life with Lou - and also looked up the age using the serial number on the Singer.  I couldn't figure out how to look up the model, so I turned to Michelle - thanks Michelle - you are a sweetie!  She helped me figure out it was indeed a 201-2 from 1951.  I did some looking around online, and found some blogs where people have fixed these up.  It looked so complicated, and I had no idea what the wiring, etc. was like on this treasure.

I let it go for a while because we had a really busy week.  Although school doesn't start in Minnesota until the day after Labor Day, they have orientation, music lessons, Dance, etc.  

We had my guild meeting tonight in that town where the machine was.  

I decided to see if it was still there.  At $35.00 I thought it would be gone.  It wasn't!  

I loaded her up, went to the short guild meeting, and headed home.  

I took a lot of covers off of everything on the machine and it all looked pretty good!  Even the wiring wasn't a mess like some pics I had seen.  I haven't plugged it in yet, but hope to later this weekend.

Bad pictures to follow.  My camera can't take close-up pictures very well. 

Inside after taking the motor cover off:

The bobbin case.  I took off the part over the feed dogs, and there was a little bit of lint.  

Overall, very clean machine!

The wiring looked good to me.  No melting or bare wire spots.  

Do you think I should try firing her up? 

With a good shining, a good cleaning, and some research on how to thread her, 

I am hoping this will be a great machine for me - at least to do my piecing!

I think I am going to have to work on some housework now.  Blah.  

We are having our 5th annual Parade and Pot Luck on Saturday.  The Blue Heron Days parade goes right in front of my house, so I invite everyone I know to come join us, and we eat together afterwards.  

Very fun, and lots of candy for the little ones.

Blessed Sewing,

Karen