Oil them daily or every second day – better a little oil more often, than too much once in a while. Don’t ‘drown’ your machine in oil! It will cause slippage and a mess that could leak onto your fabric. Take the time to clean/dust the machine inside and out, oil the many points a vintage and retro machine requires according to the machine’s manual, and lubricate the specific gears with the recommended machine lubricant as also indicated in the manual approximately twice a year or more if you keep it in a dry location, for a long life and many years of enjoyable, dependable, and nearly repair-free service.

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Kitchen and Residential Design: Who makes what?

It's no real secret that the brand name on an appliance doesn't tell you very much about who the manufacturer was. Just as with every other industry the last 20 years of the appliance world has been marked by a host of mergers and acquisitions. For the most part, who made your appliance doesn't really matter very much, but I think charts like this from Appliance 41 1 are helpful to have on hand when you're reading Consumer Reports or any other review source. When Consumer Reports praises a Kenmore range and then slams a hauntingly similar one from GE Profile it always makes me laugh. More often than not, such slams are directed at the brand and not the actual appliance. How could it be otherwise as the only difference a Kenmore and a GE Profile is the styling? Keep this chart handy of you're in the market for appliances. Note too that there's a link in the Sears category that jumps to Appliance 411's guide to the various manufacturers who actually make every Kenmore model on the market. Like I said, it's interesting. Kathy, the photo was from some woman's collection in Flickr. I can't claim ownership though I remember well a scene such as the one depicted. Although we were more prone to be melting army men in an Easy Bake. Just ask my brothers. Hah! The boxed potato chips caught my eye too. We always had them in a big can (that got delivered by the chip man no less). But a box? I'm curious to know where that photo was taken.

Source: Kitchen and Residential Design: Who makes what?

Mystery Sewing Machine Foot - Threads

Since writing my sewing-machine-foot blog article earlier this month asking you which sewing machine foot is your most important must-have foot, I've been trying to find out what the foot (pictured in the photos above) is used for. It's not mentioned in " The Sewing Machine Attachment Handbook " by Charlene Phillips, a fabulous book that we reviewed in the current issue of Threads. No. 145 --although every other foot in my stash was described in the book.

I received the foot in question without instructions or paperwork, and I haven't been able to find anything like it. I can clearly see where it attaches to the machine's stem, and it's obvious that it works using a zig-zag stitch given the width of the needle hole. There's a screw toward the back which apparently controls the length or depth (or some other measurement) of its stitches or maybe of the amount of fabric being pushed under the foot. The "fork" goes up and down as it stitches which causes a gear to circulate. The gear reminds me of the gear on a can opener. 

I guess I could just place the foot on my machine and begin to stitch to see what happens, but I'd love to have a rough idea about what it should be doing.

Have you ever used or seen a similar foot?  If so, what is it used for? Do you have a foot that you keep but don't use, because you don't know what it's for? Wouldn't it be nice if we could solve all of our sewing mysteries!?

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