craftgrrl | The Bobbin Made Me Do It

If I missed the info in the archives, I'm sorry, but I did look.

My boyfriend got me a sweet vintage sewing machine out of a dumpster, and I plugged it in, pressed the pedal, played with the knobs, and everything seems in working order. Up until now, I've been using a little pink Barbie sewing machine I got for fifty cents at a thrift store. Shut up, it worked!

Yesterday, I got up at 4am in urgent need to sew something (this often happens when I have insomnia), and since my last project broke the Barbie needle (silly me for thinking that little machine could sew leather for longer than a minute), I decided to fire up the real deal, only to find a bobbin compartment I'd never seen before and had no idea how to thread it up.

Well, I googled Pacesetter, Brother, manual, and various other bits, but it just came up with new models.

What the heck, man? How to I work this thing? I've never NOT been able to fiddle with something until I figured it out before, so I'm calling out for help.

the sewing machine with its bobbin mechanism exposed

the bobbin mechanism

the bobbin mechanism undressed!

From within, it looks like many other bobbin mechanisms I've seen in my day (but I haven't machine sewn (with a real machine) since like, 6th grade, and that was back in '93).

Help! Help!