have always wanted one of these little machines, so now I have one and it is very good despite being made in about 1976. However, it comes without a book and I can't work the button-holer out and the bobbin-winder I am not too sure of. If anyone can oblige, I would be most grateful. Thank you, Vicki from South Australia.

Hi Vicki I have managed to find several different sets of instructions on scribd.com. You may be able to find one for your machine or something that will At least help you with threading and buttonholes. Just sign up to scribd and you can download them for free. I have been a member for years. The link should take you straight to the search where I found the instructions.

https://www.scribd.com/search?pag...

I've owned several Elnas of later models, but maybe this will help. On the other dial there should be a buttonhole symbol, then the dial with the 3/(4) steps for the ziz's. Do you have the buttonhole foot? It is adjusted for length of hole. Mine you could loosen little screw on top, slide open, put button in opening and tighten. Go to internet (ebay) and look at the foot attachment. But I think you have to set up both knobs on the front-good luck. The Swiss Elna is excellent machine.

1 comment

by vickiannette 25 Feb 2017

thank you, however, I think my mini machine is a bit too old to have a button hole foot. It is Swiss though, and quite a collectible item. I have used YouTube to find out much of the information and the other Internet services have been fairly helpful....but it's not as good as real people giving their own thoughts. so thankyou v. much.

Hi Vicki, I was wondering if you can loosen the dial on the side of the machine (wheel). On one of my older machines I had to loosen the wheel and that enabled the bobbin winder to work. I see the shaft is on the top of the machine. Give it a try.
With regard to making buttonholes. Is that the symbol on the left hand dial at the bottom. When I was helping the Afghanistan ladies last year we had a machine that you had to turn each time you did a section of the buttonhole. eg. tackbar then turn dial, zig-zag backwards, then turn dial, tackbar at the top, turn the dial, then zig-zag down the other side. I hope this might be of help. Love Chris

1 comment

by vickiannette 25 Feb 2017

Hi Chris, yes I have a dial and it does wind the bobbin as you say. I tried this morning but the thread wound on much too loose, so I wonder if I'm threading it incorrectly to the bobbin winder. And yes, there are some symbols for 3 step b/hole, but I can only get the left-hand side. Should be able to go backwards for the other side of hole but I must be doing something wrong. anyway so much thanks to you. Do hope you feel better- grief can be ghastly.xx

Hi Vicki is this the Stella version? Janome is now Elna so you can contact them to see if they have a downloadable one. If yours is the mini version of the lotus (aka Stella) My mother in law has one. I can find out if she has the manual. I maybe able to find out the info you need to get you sewing. Just send a PM if you need me ask her as I know her machine is packed away so I will need to get it out for her.

1 comment

by vickiannette 25 Feb 2017

Hi Sewmum, it is a model or two before the Stella. It's a very small unit which has the fold-down bits and is called Lotus tsp. has 3 types of zigzag. Thank you for answering, but I don't know if they are exactly alike so may not be worth extracting from storage just for me.