There I Go Again

As the nice lady at the church rummage sale said, "You must have a soft spot for the old ones."

Yes, I must.

My late father was a lover of ingenious things, a pack rat, a tinkerer, an envisioner of possibilities. I always thought I was very like him in many ways, but not in that one.

Above is the "before" photo. I gave the Capitol DeLuxe a good cleaning yesterday (using my new vacuum attachments! and a lot of Tri-Flow oil), but this is how it appeared in the wild. For $20, I received fifty-some pounds worth of machine, a foot control, a battered-looking yet extremely sturdy base and case, 15 pattern cams, a ruffler, various feet and the usual complement of dusty thread and rusty pins.

I'm still figuring things out, as no manual came with the machine, and there are some mysterious moves that must be made with various levers and dials for simple operations such as changing from straight stitch to zig zag.

But does this one ever run. Yes, it goes through lots of layers of canvas without a hitch, and doubtless sews thick leather and soda cans and whatever else people show their machines doing on eBay, but that's not really the main thing. I detect almost no vibration or hesitation whatsoever. The machine is completely responsive, from a very low speed to top speed.

And can you believe the paint color and the design?