A Little of This and That

It was the "love weekend" with Valentine's Day and I have a bunch of little things to tell you, not enough for a blog post on each one so here goes:

I got an email through my blog from Brook who reads my posts as a wanna-be vintage sewing machine user. That's how she described herself to me so my quizzical look prompted her to tell me that she thought she would like sewing, bought a nice sewing machine with many bells and whistles, tried to use it, but just didn't take to sewing as she had hoped. Maybe she needed to try a different sewing machine? In the process of looking she came upon a Singer 15-91 in a dumpster. Now, that's not the usual place to look and I don't ask too many questions, but she found out this probably wasn't her dream machine either. Would I like to buy if from her? Possibly....so she brought it over and I looked it over to find it didn't have scary/dangerous electrical connections and the hand wheel moved freely. I thought I could clean it up but it was missing the bobbin case, one of those with the metal "finger" pointing to the left, the 11 o'clock position. I had to order a few of those since I was fresh out of stock but I got her cleaned up:

Singer 15-91: clear coat nearly gone, finish on cabinet, too.

The cabinet needs to be refinished but at least it hasn't been painted and will be an easy strip down job this summer. It was a win-win for Brook and myself but I'm hoping I can interest Brook in the next offering of how-to-use-your-vintage-sewing-machine class at the Fridley Community Center in April. Another listing is going out for a one night session for only $21 so people, please sign up!

Along with sewing machines coming in the door, sometimes I have a revolving door. Ernie was making modified hunting gear and wanted a machine that would pierce some very thick layers of webbing. He brought over some samples of what he was hoping to do and we tried out the Consew industrial and a Singer 15-91 and for his money he went with the 15-91. As always, I guarantee my machines if they do not perform or you find it's just not the machine for you. Yup, that one is coming back mainly because he already had a Kenmore that worked just as hard. Without a compelling reason to have another machine that would do the same thing, he decided it needed to be returned. We were hoping for some bonding with that beautiful machine but, alas, there was no love and I have to sing the old Dean Martin song "Return to Me."

Valentine's Day is a time for a party so why not have a Star Wars theme? You might have read about the Star Wars new movie celebration we had at my work for Study Day in December so my pastor got wind of it and asked if they could use some of the props. Of the 40 people who came there were about a dozen of us in costume Sunday night with robes and capes with light sabers in hand. My husband wore the Obi Wan Kenobi costume I made up for the library display

Star Wars props

 and I looked over photos and decided I could come up with an outfit for Rey:

Rey character from Star Wars

It was pretty easy to find cargo pants, neutral shirt, a couple of brown belts, and brown boots. To make the draping (to keep out the desert sand?) I found a long piece of sheer fabric, probably a swag for a curtain rod, that I could use. It came together pretty easily except for the army bag on her belt but I had some fabric that would work and made my own bag. I liked making the blanket stitch on my Viking 1100:

Cool blanket stitch!

We won't be going to a casting call but it was still a lot of fun:

Obi Wan (Jim) with Rey (Karen)