Saturday, August 4, 2012

News about great great nephew Isaac is good. He's a miracle child. Isaac was born prematurely about 15 months ago, and has been fighting a battle ever since. He has never been able to leave the hospital, and has been at Cook Children's Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas all of his life. Only recently was he able to experience leaving his bed/room. He is still on a respirator, and a couple of weeks ago they were able to start weaning him from it for a bit. He was up to 6 hours off of it, and he was permitted to go outside for the very first time. The last time I checked with my nephew, Issac was up to 15 hours per day off the respirator. We are all hoping and praying that it won't be long before Isaac's lungs and diaphragm/muscles are strong enough that he can breathe on his own. He has fought a good fight, is a happy baby boy, and everyone is excited that he may get to leave the hospital "soon." It's been an uphill battle sometimes, and I have no idea what the medical costs are or have been or will be in the future. There is no way it can ever be repaid. But here's hoping that Isaac will be off the respirator very soon and that the process of strengthening all his body can take place. We look forward to the day he can finally leave the hospital.

Thrilled that I accomplished something today! Several months ago I took a quilting class and used my Brother 5130 for the class. At the end of the last day of class I was attempting to change out the bobbin and accidentally hit the release button for the whole bobbin mechanism. I wasn't able to get it put back together during class so brought it home that way. It's been in the roll around carrier ever since waiting for me to "get to it." I DID IT!!! Happened to look around the sewing room and saw the carrier and it dawned on me what was in it. SO, I pulled out the Brother and put it back together. Yippee! Now it's ready to go to another sewing gathering - although lately I haven't bothered to take a machine...just too much effort for the short amount of time available to sew.

AND, I think I've made a decision about my other Brother machine. It's a 651 Charger. I traded a television with my cousin Judy for this machine. It had lived a rather sad life. I think it was originally a portable and someone had put it in a very cheap flimsy cabinet, badly wiring it into a knee depressed system. Wiring was bad, covered with electrical tape, and the machine had been in the garage for a while because it "needed something done to it - maybe a part for the tension." K. and I researched it, discovered it is one of the machines made after WW II when almost ALL sewing machine production went to Japan in an effort to assist Japan in kick starting its economy. So, these machines were badged under many different names - Brother, Kenmore, J. C. Penney, and others. This is a nice "robin egg" color, depending on the light. It looks blue to me in the house, green outdoors.

Ken and I took it out of the cabinet (yea!), did a bit of cleaning on it, disengaged all the horrible wiring connected to it, saw that it would run, found a copy of the manual for it online, and decided it was worth saving. We took it to Mr. Bruner who fell in love with it, went through it checking it out and fixed the few things wrong with it. He ordered a foot controller with connecting lines for it, put on a new belt, and it works great! We elected to ditch the cheap cabinet and ordered a custom wood tray box for it from our supplier friend, Cindy Peters, of Wisconsin. She sent us the perfect one. The machine fits in it very well.

The different thing about these machines is the needle is left aligned, not center aligned. But it zig zags and does some "fancy" stitches, and according to the manual it's possible to do free motion on it. It has a drop feed on it. We don't have extra feet/accessories for this machine, but I am assured we can get them - thru either Cindy or Jenny (http://www.sew-classic.com/). So now what to do with the machine? I've been wavering on whether to keep it, sell it, or give it away. The truth is, I don't need it.

Here's a picture of it...hoping I find someone who will love it. The original idea was to fix it up and give it to a cousin for his wife who wants to learn to sew. However, when I mentioned it to him he wasn't real gungho about a vintage machine. I think they want one of the modern plastic models. So now what to do with this one. I'm thinking I'm going to put it in the car tomorrow and take it with me to the quilting bee and see if anyone wants it. Or maybe I'll just ask at the bee. I don't want anyone taking it who is just going to put it in the dump or Goodwill. I may need to offer it to one of the fellow members of the Vintage Japanese Machines on Yahoo. (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vintagejapansewingmachines/) Hmm, what to do, what to do!! I don't want to leave it setting for a long time - that's not good for these older machines.