Thrifted puzzle solved - Greist attachments!

So I had picked up this little box of sewing accessories a couple of months ago. It says "Atlas" on it, which is a classic old sewing machine.  That I don't have.

I thought if I could find an accessory in this box to fit my machine, I'd call it good, and worth the cost. This was way back when I only had ONE machine here. I puzzled over the accessories for awhile, then set them aside and decided I'd sell them eventually.



Here's what all was inside:

I let them sit for awhile.  And then I got the old Kenmore in the table.  And then thrifted the Kenmore that we spent hours fixing. And after spending hours reading repair manuals, assembly diagrams, and blogs, I started subconsciously learning about sewing machine feet.

And once the machine was fixed, I pulled the feet out to see if any would fit, since this one didn't have any accessories with it.

I found a few feet and a ruffler foot that had the right alignment to my machine.  And the rest had a really weird build to them, with a screw hole to attach on the BACK of the pieces.  I couldn't figure out how to attach them.  These were all really cool looking feet that I wanted to learn to use! I couldn't find any feet with the right setup on Ebay...so I went back and sat down with them today.  Glad I didn't waste my money!

Through a miracle of sorts, I landed on this manual for the Greist feet, which is what all of these are.  And in the manual, it describes the "attachment foot" that you use with the oddball feet.  Well, none of my feet looked like the magical attachment foot! But one was close. It didn't have a screw on it, but had a weird piece of plastic.

And wouldn't you know it, it works!

Instead of having a screw to adjust it, like in the manual, this one has a "spring loaded" lever that you lift, which loosens the little bolt head.

You then slide your attachment on, adjust it to align with the attachment foot needle hole, and release the little lever to hold it in place.  Ingenious!

You can just leave the attachment foot on your machine and switch out the different hemmers and other attachments.  Here's what it looks like on the machine:

So now, for my $3 and research, I have a ruffle foot, a zipper foot, a narrow hemmer, a binder foot, and edge stitcher foot, and 4 hemmer feet of various sizes...there's also a fabric guide that screws into the bed of the machine to keep your fabric at the right distance from your needle.  See that little hole to the right of the silver plate (in the previous picture)?

It screws into there, are you can line it up with the measurements on the plate.

Puzzle solved!  I am one happy girl.

Go me!

Now if I can just get my buttonhole dial unjammed I'll be a queen. :)

I hope this helps someone out there looking for vintage Greist or other sewing machine attachments.  Did you know way back when, they weren't called feet?  They were just "attachments". I like that.

Have a great day!

Jess

PS - I should add that there are many lots of these types of feet on Ebay, for a great price!  My machine uses "low shank" attachments - if you don't know what type yours uses, look here for a good reference.