New Quilt Visitors and How to Lower Feed Dogs on Singer 15-88 thru 91

I have some new quilts visiting me, although, technically, they are not quilts yet.  Adding the quilting to these quilts for our prayer quilt ministry will be my job...

 a job for which I happily volunteered, because Judy makes such interesting quilts...

 that will surely be a blessing to the recipient.

Of course, these quilts join several other quilts that are visiting at the moment.

I've been asked where to lower feed dogs on a vintage Singer 15-88 thru 91. Here's my Singer 15-88/90.  (It came with a motor but was in a  treadle so that it could be used either with or without electricity.  I removed the motor and gifted it to Moriarty's Old Sewing Machine Guy.)

To get to the feed dog lowering apparatus, I first disengaged the treadle belt so I could raise the machine.

 You can see the large rod and the large screw to the right of the feed dogs.
This is the screw that needs to be loosened and glided forward so that the feed dogs will drop.

I'm not sure it had been used since the machine was purchased in 1936, so I had to apply quite a bit of Tri-flow, let it sit, and then gently work it loose.  (I strongly advise against using something like WD-40, because once it loosens, it dries and gets very sticky so that nothing will move.)  One of my friends took a hammer to hers and tapped it to get it loose--I'm not sure how good an idea that would be, although it worked for her.)  Once the screw is loose and everything is working smoothly, raising or lowering the feed dogs is just a matter of tightening or loosening this screw.

Many other Singer models do not have this capability. I read last night that the 201 was considered a seamstress's/dressmaker's machine and the 15/88-91s were considered "The Farmer's Wife" machines.  I think that might be a myth.

I have no therapy appointments today, so I'm hopeful that I will accomplish a great deal.
We're continuing to pray for rain.  We had clouds, lightning, thunder, and rain on three sides of us yesterday, but nary a drop here.  In fact, in Albuquerque there were even some flash floods.  On my way to an appointment yesterday, my windshield was hit by *one* big, fat drop of rain.  That was it.
When I was young, I marveled at how the old farmers' conversations were filled with much talk of the weather.  Now that I'm getting old myself, I find the weather the subject of my thoughts too.
Weird!

I'm going to link to Esther's WIPs on Wednesdays as well as Freshly Pieced so you can find and comment on a lot of lovely projects by other quiltmakers.

Happy Quiltmaking....