TOGA Redeux

After waiting a whole year to have another River Rats TOGA, it has come and gone in a flash. I saved up a few sewing machines that had problems to see if I could get a satisfactory solution, brought a hand-crank sewing machine that I didn't get sewing last year back again, picked out items to bring to the raffle, and connected with friends ahead of time to see if they were going. All of this orchestration over the summer and then it finally was the day to drive down about 90 minutes to Lake City for my second River Rats TOGA. Old friends, new friends, so many treadle and hand-cranked sewing machines and nary a white plastic wonder in the place: it was heaven!

My first project was to get my hand-crank German made machine to work:

German hand-crank

It is a transverse shuttle model, very similar to a Singer 12, but I suspected its failure to sew was user error. Sure enough, I didn't know how to thread the boat-type shuttle and several people helped me since mine was just a tad different. I also needed a different needle but there were none any for sale at the time so I was encouraged to just set the needle lower to see if I could get it to work. Success! Now I will have to work on cleaning it up and figuring out how to fix the chipping paint on the bed. It's oh so smooth when it cranks so I'm happy for now.

The raffle was a hoot with only a few items up for individual raffle and most of it was "all in the pot" with everyone called just getting the pick of what was on the tables. There were many sewing machines, lots of fabric bundles, and a great deal of miscellaneous. My picks were bundles of fabric:

My raffle fabrics

some bags with books that are questionable (no more cross stitch!), but almost at the very end was a lonely Singer sewing machine that was meant just for me:

Singer 15-91 in green (it really is green!)

She's fairly green but this photo doesn't do her justice. What's so special about this one? It's a potted motor 15-91 and I don't think anyone recognized it as the beloved gear to gear sewing machine:

Singer 15-91: see the potted motor sticking out on the back?

What a gem! The power cord is missing and the wiring was disconnected but everything was there to put it back into shape. This is going to be one great machine once it's back together ...and it's green! After I sat down with it, Bill looked over and said "Do you know what you have there?" and I said "You bet I do!" and he confirmed that I had one of the best models and a rare green to boot.

Everyone had to clear the place out of their winnings so it could get set up for the turkey dinner to follow. Here's a few of the raffle winnings going out to their vehicles:

Part of the haul going out to trailers and hatchbacks

Before he said grace, pastor Dave brought out the stole he was presented with last year to show it off again and Cindy presented him with a huge collection of new pot holders for the church kitchen. I was proud of my contribution that I wrote about in a previous post, Free, as in Free-Motion.

Cindy Peters with Pastor Dave and his quilt square stole

At the end of this satisfying day we went home without the rain that was predicted, happy with our raffle winnings, new friends made, plenty of stories for future posts, and a little white Singer 221, the Featherweight. That's right, I have a white Featherweight! She is beyond cute so I'll have to tell you all about her next time so stay tuned to the adventures of Sewing Machine Mavin!