So an American President has actually given lip service to the revolutionary concept that all people are created equal, endowed with certain inalienable rights, chief among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Part of me says it's about damn time. Another, more cynical, part of me notes that it's an election year.

And then there's the whole lovely traffic situation last night, the same thing that happens every time he comes into town. :)

That all aside, though, I spent a good portion of last night working with the Singer 101 on a skirt for Faire. I have decided she (the sewing machine, not the skirt) has earned the name "Mikaela." (All my vintage machines have "m" names - Maggie the handcrank, Moraga the treadle.) The reasoning behind the 101 getting this most special name is that she may look a little trashy (the cabinet needs work), but she's long and lean and elegant, runs as smooth as silk, is mechanically sound (after a day to think about its drink of oil, the bobbin winder works again), and came through when I needed her.

The 101 is a somewhat curious machine. Singer only made it for seventeen years (1920-1937; Mikaela dates from 1931), which seems a long time until you consider that some models they manufactured for upward of fifty years. It's not popular among vintage sewing machine collectors, and I'm not entirely sure why. It was the first machine Singer made that was completely and only intended for electric use. I'm told it doesn't quite have the power of its younger sister, the much-loved 201; maybe that's why? Or maybe its visual oddities offend people's visual sensibilities. Every other sewing machine I know of has a half-moon needle plate; the 101's is square. Stitch length is controlled by a knob on the bed, rather than the trunk, of the machine.

Well, whatever the reasons, I like Mikaela. She's helping me turn two grotty pieces of fabric into a decent skirt. The body of the skirt is a cream linen-look fabric that was riddled with holes on the ends and along the selvedge; I managed to salvage a 99" circumference skirt out of it. Problem is, I could cut enough off one selvedge to get rid of the holes, but doing so on the other side as well would leave the skirt far too short. So I took some sage probably-cotton and applied a wide guard to the bottom of the skirt. The holes on the fabric can still be seen from the inside, but I will patch them by hand later. I've got one welt cut of the same fabric and will probably do a second as well, but if neither can get applied in time for tomorrow, that's fine. My main task for tonight will be pleating the skirt, sewing on a waistband, and applying hooks and eyes.

Vintage sewing machines sometimes come with their manuals. Of mine, however, the only one possessing that distinction is the 128 my inlaws gave me. The rest... well, I've acquired a manual for the 15 off eBay, and wait patiently for originals to come up for the 401 and the 101. Ebay is a wonderful resource for these kind of things.

I googled the problem I'm having with the 101, and multiple results seem to indicate that the problem is likely either (a) needle is not set in correctly, (b) thread is coming off the bobbin in the wrong direction, or (c) a combination of both.

Now, Singer may make crappy sewing machines these days, but one thing they do right is having the vintage manuals on their website available for purchase ($15 for a spiral-bound photocopy) or download. So I've downloaded and printed out the pages having to do with the bobbin and needle, and will take a second look tonight. Hopefully it will turn out to be simple user error.

Edited another ten pages for classmates. Stopping at page 276/617, and 124,534 words. Finally in dragon country! And a scene setting based on my two visits to the Golden Pavilion in Kyoto.

Watered the potted plants tonight. Discovered that placing the heavy potting bench in front of the broken gate and putting a potted rosebush in the gap on one side and a tomato in its cage on the other still isn't stopping neighborhood kids from worming their way through and using our yard as a thoroughfare to the park behind us. There's a footprint in the mulch and the cage is bent, support pole knocked astray.

Fortunately, I have a plan. We can't replace the gate yet - the post it hangs from is part of a going-to-come-down-in-the-first-good-quake cinderblock wall between us and the neighbors - but I can sure as hell shut it permanently. I have zipties.

For now, though, I go poke at the Singer 101 and see how difficult it will be to get it working.