With a Little Help From Our Friends

 I'm back. I didn't go anywhere, I just needed a break from my usual fair and, unfortunately, I left my readers behind. It was a long, tough winter and spring seems so have eluded us in Minnesota, but let's proceed with springtime in our souls.

Sewing machine sales and repairs have been busy as well as sewing, sewing, sewing on all the different sewing machines. Lovely women have come to sew at my house, making zippered pouches, then fleece mittens, followed by fleece slippers. Okay, so maybe that was the wrong order and they should have accomplished the easier slippers before tackling the more difficult mittens (left, right or right left?), a good time was had by all.

Then there was Wendy, bless her heart, who had a vision of what she wanted to make after tackling the above projects. On her way to making a rag quilt with some of her mother's clothing, she paused to make machine embroidered pillowcases for the boys in her life. What started out as sports themed motifs for three boys on Easter turned into a total of five:

Four of the final five pillowcases

We used the Singer Futura XL 400 to download and stitch out the designs and I made Wendy stitch up the rest of the pillowcase on another machine. After she handed them out, the oldest nephew, at 16, pulled her aside and said "Aunt Wendy, I got the best one!", a Nike shoe she did pick out just for him.

Here's the blessing in doing this kind of work with others: while we were getting this all sewn over a couple weeks in March and April, Wendy's youngest sister is getting sicker and sicker, finally going to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Surgery was scheduled, testing was done, but before she could have the surgery she died, leaving behind that 16 year old son mentioned above and a six year old who got the spider man pillowcase. No one knew this was going to happen so fast and are scrambling to place the boys into another aunt's home in their hometown. Working on these pillowcases gave Wendy a reason to come to our house and talk about her sister and what she was going through, talking with my husband who was in the medical field before early retirement, who has also been a chaplain. We didn't know this was a respite in her life, a chance to get out of the house and direct her energy into something creative. But, Wendy didn't have a sewing machine at home and that's why she was using mine.

In steps Warren, a recent widow, whose wife had been giving me fabric and sewing "stuff" (that's an official sewing term, look it up) over the years after she became legally blind. Jenny told Warren that when she died she wanted her sewing stuff to go to Karen because she would know what to do with it. Oh, you betcha! First came two sewing machines, then a tackle box of supplies, and I hear there are more bobbins coming, too. Now who should those sewing machines go to? I usually have no clue but this time I thought about Wendy and asked her if she would like the refurbished Signature model to use, for free, to see if she would like to eventually purchase it or just return it. She's going to give it a go, hoping to return it later when she has more skills and could use a better sewing machine. I don't think she's going to need a better machine because this one is really nice, just purring along with a great stitch. When I told Warren about the new home for one of the sewing machines, he was taken aback at first, then remembered who Wendy was, and a big smile came across his face. That was going to be a good home for one of Jenny's sewing machines; I agree.

Wendy holding up flaming baseball pillowcase

 

Cabinets and Miniatures

 It's that time of year again where I need to clear out the cabinets from the garage so we can get both cars in before it snows. When I peek into the garage I see two cabinets with sewing machines that are listed and ready for a new home, one refinished but empty cabinet, two cabinets in the process of being refinished, one waiting to get listed, and an industrial I just don't know what to do with.

State of the garage

Up front is the cabinet with a Singer 201-2. It's one of my favorite cabinets, a cabinet no. 2 of the treadle variety but not treadle, electric.

Singer 201-2 in refinished table

It came all apart so I could strip and refinish every last piece. The straight legs even needed to be painted, something I haven't had to do with this model of table so I went to Ace Hardware for a sample size of brown paint, about the cheapest way to get a mixed color in a small batch. It wasn't quite right so I went back and had it darkened. Turned out to be a great color that I might have to use again. All those pieces were like a puzzle but after doing several parts three times it finally works. Isn't she a beauty? And the sewing machine works well, too.

I couldn't resist a free Singer 401 and I thought the cabinet was going to be okay. Once it came into the garage I realized there was just too much flaking varnish so the whole things got stripped and refinished:

Singer 401 will go back in this table

This model had no real marks on it, just the flaking varnish so there was exposed wood that had turned darker. It's going to look spectacular when it's done (even the fake drawer pulls polished up nicely). With the nice weather we are enjoying I hope to get all of these done and listed for sale by Saturday.

Now we can get to the one I'm going to keep, the Davis vertical feed. The cabinet is oak and has seen better days with the veneer chipping on all sides of the top. I just had to make a decision about how to deal with that much chipping but I kept it intact and just sanded, getting ready for sealing coat. What was I going to be underneath the veneer? I didn't want to find out. The irons were pretty rusty so I cleaned them up and painted them. This was a first for me, at least I don't remember painting irons before. They turned out really nice but the cabinet languished. I finally got going and have it stained and ready with the 401's cabinet for a seal coat:

Davis cabinet, irons behind it

You can see I'm busy and looking forward to the craft fairs at the end of the month. Yes, they are back!

A package came in the mail a couple months ago and I have yet to share the contents with you. My sister, Sue, said she was sending me something but it wasn't ready yet. By the time it came I had almost forgotten those words so was so surprised to open the box to find this:

A tiny suitcase?

Once I got it opened I found a miniature Necchi:

Hand crank toy Necchi

Fits in its own small carrying case

It makes a good chain stitch:

Chain stitch sample

When I had it open to oil I noticed the red lever on the bottom:

When fully open you can see it's a music box! The red lever engages the mechanism or turns it off. The tune sounds familiar but I cannot pin it down. I'm going to have to share with my daughter Kelly who would easily be able to identify the tune. The back story to this little gem goes back a year or more when she sent me a photo of the machine and asked if she should buy it at a local garage sale. I said yes and then forgot about it. The hand crank mechanism was broken and then she had the dilemma of how to fix it.  JBWeld was suggested and that seemed to do the trick.  I'll turn the handle carefully! All in all, it was a very thoughtful gift from a thoughtful sister, one I will treasure.

Panel Quilting

 I love it when a concept in my head actually turns out better than expected and there are days when this seems to be the exception rather than the rule. I have been browsing around to find ideas for how to include a large panel in a quilt and just haven't come up with any really great ideas. The panel I've been saving is not so much pricey, it's the fabrics I'm putting with it that are so I don't want to mess it up. Along comes another panel, bought at a thrift store, that gave me the push I needed to actually dream up panel quilt ideas of my own.

While browsing one of my favorite thrift stores, I spied a panel that said something I wanted to keep:

Center panel with 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

There were about eight of them and even though I was tempted to buy more, reason kicked in and I went out the door with only one. Showing it off to friends later I noticed it wasn't cut even on one side and that was going to be a problem so I went back the same day and traded it out for a better one. It didn't languish long when I got out block patterns and tried out various color combinations, as you can see from the block next to the panel above. Here's a close up of my experimentation:

Color combinations

The white or cream background was nice but just too washed out. When I tried a print as the main color you can see that it's so busy you cannot see the pattern.  Since I was using a 10" layer cake stack of fabrics (the colors were really great with the panel colors), I went with one of the dominant colors for a turquoise main color with the others as supporting fabrics. There was too much red/pink to my liking so my husband suggested I try more yellow. I had to look in my stash of fabrics to find a few more that would coordinate well but in the end that was what worked.

Mock up for borders

With my daughters' help in color coordinating, I added the blue and brown inner borders but when it was done it just didn't look complete so she suggested another brown border and that was exactly what was needed. I found a brown print in my stash that would work for the backing and I was on a roll. Deciding how to quilt the various areas was really fun with an outline of the large botanical elements on the panel, outline the word "love", free motion designs on the blue and brown borders, but what about those big 12" blocks? I moved to a walking foot and stitched in the ditch on one side of each V pattern. With only twenty blocks it wasn't too tedious even if I did have to take out stitching once in awhile due to puckering on the backing. Once I got to the final border I got excited to mimic the straight diagonal lines of the blocks by making a diamond grid along the final edge. There was even enough brown fabric left to bind the whole thing! I love it when I don't have to buy anything new and for this 76" square project I only had to purchase the turquoise solid. Here's the quilt I took to First Quilter's to show off as well as get some advice:

Almost done!

I shared with them how I wanted to add stitches in the panel area so it would wash well and not bunch up and I got two suggestions. I added an outline of a dove in the center of the words and also added some flourishes around the lines of text where needed. It worked out  with no spaces larger than the 8" required for spacing by the batting manufacturer. 

Which machine did I use? For this project I started on a Janome Skyline 3 that was wonderful for piecing but when it came time for the free motion sewing the Janome didn't have feed dogs that dropped so I moved to a Bernina Artista 200. While that was great for free motion, when I needed to use a walking foot I moved to the Elna Quilting Queen 7300 with its built in walking foot. I love all three machines but think the Janome is going to be listed for sale and the Bernina was only bought so I could learn the embroidery system. More about those things later because we are off camping again to give me a bit of relief from sewing. 

We do have some sad news: our beloved cat, Meg, was finally put down a couple weeks ago, just shy of her 19th birthday. She was my sewing companion many times sitting on the back of the chair seat with me, trying to vie for my attention. Here's a final photo of the quilt and one of our Meg. May this quilt give someone joy as Meg did for us.

Grand finale

Meg, our quilting cat

Growing Older with Sewing Machines

 Many people ask where I find my sewing machines and I usually tell them I troll Craigslist, resell shops, trade-in, and new friends in sewing. Lately I've been the recipient of machines and sewing supplies from those who can no longer sew due to failing eyesight, physical limitations, and moving to a care facility. I first reported on finding an Elna Quilting Queen in the post Queen for a Day where failing eyesight forced the owner to sell her very fine sewing machine. I continue to use this machine and I'm considering keeping it.

About a month ago I answered an ad about sewing supplies in a storage shed and got in touch with a gentleman whom I met at a nearby storage facility. This all sounds a bit sketchy but we met in broad daylight and I sent a quick text to one of my daughters to tell her where I was and what I was doing just in case I was never heard from again. No joke: I take precautions whenever necessary. As it turned out, I got to look through the boxes and decide which ones to haul home and which ones I could not use and it was only one flat fee. Here's where it gets sweet: the owner had a trailer and would bring them right to my house. Deal! Instead of the 15 boxes he thought were available, I ended up with 24 boxes and still left file cabinets of patterns behind. He told the story of his mother and how she made doll clothes and was way deep into crafts. She died over a year ago and those boxes had been stored for at least ten years and they were ready to clear them out. I actually love a project like this so I got busy and sorted through the boxes and made piles: sell, keep, Textile Center Garage Sale, garbage. I found some nice books, zippers, seam roll, tailors ham and point board, quilting grids, cool fabric, fabric paint, and so many other sewing items.

That's a lot of sorting!

One of the most amazing things was a whole bolt of white terrycloth that was dirty and stained on the top folded edge. I serged the cut edges, sprayed the stains, soaked in hot water with a detergent booster, and washed it up. It turned out fantastic! That's 12 yards of decent quality fabric for stuffed animals, bibs, robes, or whatever I can dream up. My sister Sue always comes up with great ideas so I frequently tap into her creative mind for additional uses.

Just this week I answered an ad for a giveaway of a serger and other sewing supplies. I met a sweet woman who was moving to a different apartment in a senior center and knew she needed to really get serious about what she should keep and find a new home for unused items. Due to an ongoing shoulder problem she could no longer sew and was clearing out her sewing room. I was to get a dress form,

Dress Form

Elna serger in a Koala cabinet, various sewing supplies, and an office chair. While we tried to figure out how to get everything on a flatbed cart, I spied her Janome sewing machine and asked if she was selling it also. She was but had no offers so I bought it from her, including two lights and the table it was on.

Janome Skyline S3

I brought home quite the haul, including some fantastic fabric that was high quality and rather recently bought.

Fabric waiting to be sewn up

While we boxed and chatted, I told her about my sewing life and she said she was glad to know her items were going to be put to good use. What a sweet woman and one I could learn some life lessons from.

During all of this we got a new shed that included a cement pad so our yard is a wreck with beaten down grass and no rain to bring it back to life but no rain also meant all of the work was done on time. With help from a daughter and grandson, it has now received two coats of paint and is ready for an electrician to install a line. My husband helped our neighbor build a ramp (thanks, Bob!) so we are almost finished. Will sewing machines find their way into the shed? Stay tuned to the further adventures of the Sewing Machine Mavin.

New shed

Are You Ready?

 It's been a busy time here, getting ready for a garage sale as well as buying and restoring sewing machines (and sewing). Although I've had sewing machine garage sales where I put out thirty to forty sewing machines and sergers, this time it's just a garage sale except there were three tables of fabric and three or four tables of jewelry. You read that right: jewelry. Along with hot mitts, towels, ironing board covers, and a whole lot of other sewn items, my craft fair booth has included tables of my husbands collection of jewelry for sale. Scouring garage sales, thrift stores, and antique shops, he collected quite a bit of vintage jewelry, some to refashion, some to clean up, as well as supplies to make new earrings, bracelets, and necklaces. Although he did fairly well, by now he was tired of those boxes taking up space and making him feel guilty for losing interest in this hobby.  He decided to sell it all at a garage sale so we plunged into  those boxes and priced everything for sale at about 90% off of our original asking price. Although it took a whole weekend and many other nights, we got it all done. Here's what it looked like when we took photos for the ad:

Table full of jewelry!

Jewelry making supplies

Table full and waiting to be taken out to the driveway

Along with the jewelry, I went through bin after bin of fabric to remove anything I knew I wasn't going to use. It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be and rather cathartic. There were pieces I ended up with as part of a package deal that I had not picked out myself and really didn't even have any money into them, fake fur from fifty years ago (no kidding), and vintage linen left over from my collection that I was not going to use. It all was measured and priced, put in plastic bags, for a huge amount of sale fabric. 

It was a heat warning day when we opened up, vowing to close at 3 pm when the heat would peak. On that first day we sold as much as the next two days combined despite the heat. All of the jewelry making supplies were sold and about half of the jewelry, same as the fabric bundles. It was great but we planned on having the sale two weekends in a row and our stock looks pretty weak in comparison to when we started. We can't/won't produce more jewelry but I can keep going through fabric bins to see what else might be sold. Yes, there were bins that didn't get sorted yet so I have more work to do!

While this was going on I continue to buy sewing machines and have a few that are pretty nifty: Singer 201, some plastic Singers, two Montgomery Wards machines, White sergers, and the best of all, a Singer 1200. I loved the 1200 I bought last year and was sorry to see it go so when my husband and I stopped at a thrift store on senior discount Tuesday and spied this lovely, it came home with us. Unfortunately, it started to emit a thin stream of white smoke from the motor so I knew it was going to need to be rewired. Following Rain's series of blog posts on How to Rewire a Potted Motor, I'm almost done but it has been quite a job. As it turns out, this motor had been rewired previously so it didn't seem like it was going to respond well to another attempt. Since I had another Singer 201 potted motor in a machine with terrible cosmetic flaws, I was able to exchange parts between machines to ensure at least one would be safe and working. 

When putting it all back together, I noticed the 1200 had some electrical tape on the controller box, what is used as a foot controller in this model.

Inside of the controller box and wiring

It was easy to rewire the controller, no splicing needed but now much safer:

New wire added, ready to be installed

It continued to smoke and the motor was hot to touch so something was still wrong. After much reading about the possible problems, I ended up taking a motor from another 201-2. This time it worked great except that foot peddle wasn't as responsive so it would keep stitching even when I removed my foot. More adjustments but this is minor and I'm happily sewing on it now out in the garage.

It's swimsuit season and I've stitched up six so far: two for each the nieces in Michigan and one for each of my granddaughters.  I got carried away with the nieces and not only made the suits but also tote bags with their names:

Suits and tote bag for Frannie

Suits and tote bag for Vivi

Both girls are on swim team and have to wear regulation swimsuits but for when they are home in their own pool they can have "fashion" suits. I loved making them up, making them feel special. My niece said they loved them and I even got thank you cards.

Which machine did I use? My Bernina 1100DA serger, of course, but this time I bought a new toy for it to play with: an elasticator foot. It was my hope that it would make sewing on the elastic in the swimsuits five openings easier but there was a learning curve that almost made me want to give up. Even though you feed the elastic into the foot and there is a tension dial, you still need to figure out how much tension you should add when the elastic is in your hands. This enabled me to add more tension on the back of the leg openings and less on the front of the legs. By the time I was done with the four suits I was getting the hang of it. The next two suits were for my granddaughters and it was much easier

Evelyn's dinosaur swimsuit

That's enough for now and I hope to continue writing about sewing machines and my adventures with them but for now I'm just enjoying sewing with all the different machines. Who wouldn't?

Queen for a Day

 When I was a small tyke, my mom used to plunk me down in front of the 12" TV and turn on a favorite show to keep me busy. We hadn't heard about limiting screen time back then! One show I remember was Queen for a Day where several potential winners would tell the host their problem(s) in hopes of being chosen and winning all of the prizes. The one with the best story would be named Queen for a Day and would be shown all of her wonderful prizes that usually included kitchen appliances, washer and dryer, maybe a vacation or a new car. I loved seeing all of the prizes but it also made me sad because the other contestants still had their problems and went home with some consolation prize. This post is going to show you how I'm not only a Queen for a Day but every day because I found an Elna Quilting Queen Pro 7300 sewing machine.

Elna Quilting Queen Pro 7300

The first project I used it on was my sister's blue quilt and I couldn't have been happier. Although it has a large table to help with those bigger projects, I set it up on my dining table so there would be even more room for the quilt. The extension table had a large chunk broken off the front but I used white duct tape and made it smooth and usable again.

Extension table mended

There are so many features but I'll list my favorite ones, or at least those I have discovered.

Needle threader: so many sewing machines have this handy feature and they work for the most part but the Elna QQ does a better job than most. Very few are foolproof!

Thread cutter: my only other experience with this feature is my Viking Designer I and it's a bit touchy. This machine makes a rather loud sound as it is engaged but it works every time. Enough said.

Handy features

Presser foot lift: there is a knee lever for this feature that I can't use on the table it now rests on (lever catches on the table's front trim) but it works fine on the right surface.

Stitch chart: I usually find these things annoying but even though it's fairly large I pull it out of the tote bag and peruse it from time to time. How nice to see all of the stitches at once!

Stitch selection chart

Presser feet: these are the snap on variety but work just fine and it came with a fairly large variety. The narrow hemmer worked fine yesterday.

Presser feet of excellent quality

Bobbin winder: place the empty spool on the winder, thread it up, push a button on the screen, it's done. Seems like less fuss than some, winds a nice tight bobbin.

Bobbin winding with the push of a button

 and finally, the even feed foot: it's really the best reason to own this machine. Just like the Pfaff IDT, this is just one foot that locks into place and is a built in walking foot: first photo shows lever

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even feet foot engaged

The Elna Quilting Queen Pro is designed for quilting but it can still be used for garment sewing and home dec but note there is no free arm option, something that is always handy. I still managed to sew up swimsuits, capri pants, and shirts in the past few weeks so I'm not missing it too much. I hate to say it but this might have to live with me for quite awhile until I slink back to my D1. It will certainly be mad at me for my defection. I always say you need more than one sewing machine since some perform better than others at certain tasks but the Elna 7300 has won my heart for now.

Chenille Quilting

 More quilting has been going on, the machines are piling up, and we are heading into a warm season. You know what that means: everyone is outdoors and not thinking about sewing. I guess I need to find a way to store these beauties until 1. it gets hot enough to drive us indoors to an air conditioned room or 2. it turns cold, as in winter. Since I finished the big project of my sister Sue's quilt, I looked over my projects-in-waiting and saw the laundry basket full of flannel. Last Christmas I knit each grandchild a pair of slippers and put them in a bag with their name. That was a pretty big hit so this year I'm going to take on making each one a pair of pajama pants. My quilting sister, Jane, did this last year for her family so I'm going to try that out this year especially since I have so much time if I start now. Since they are growing kids I better not actually sew them up now but I am looking through my patterns and matching up flannel with the kids in question. Even after finding eleven different pieces, all big enough for pj pants, I still have a very large amount of flannel left. What uses up a ton of flannel (that doesn't even have to match) in one or two quilts? Making a chenille quilt.

You can make your own "chenille" by stacking fabrics, stitching channels on the bias, cutting open the top pieces of fabric, then washing and drying to create the fluffy ridges like the old chenille bedspreads. After Googling for ideas on how to assemble these blocks into a quilt, I found an idea of using printed fabric panels to make the chenille. It dawned on me that I did have panels to use up so I dug out a Christmas set and a wolf set and got started on the wolves.

Wolf block, stacked with channels stitched

I conveniently had twelve panels, six of each pose, so I could make a quilt of four blocks. each block consisted of three panels carefully stacked to match, with a bottom fabric that would face the opposite way and would be the back of the quilt. There was a large piece of tan printed flannel I could use so I stacked, sewed in channels about a half inch apart, then cut the top two open with a chenille cutter. The bottom two layers are not cut since they are foundation pieces of the quilt. I did have a chenille cutter that I wrote about in Chenille Maker but over time and a bit of frustration I found a sharp pair of scissors worked better for me. I also found it was better to sew each line of stitches as a single row, not turning the piece around and heading in the opposite direction (as shown in the photo above) since you would have to cut through those turning stitches at the end. The perfect machine for this project was the Elna Pro Quilter 7300, a new purchase I have not regretted. It has the built-in walking foot to keep all of those layers from moving and the thread cutting feature was perfect.

Elna Pro Quilting Queen 7300

After making the four 15" blocks I could see this wasn't going to add up to much for size but what to use for sashing to expand and connect the blocks was a big question. The blocks were already four layers of fabric thick with the backing fabric on them so I needed to create more of the same for the strips between the quilt blocks. I found fabric that coordinated well, meant for another project but not used, layering top print, two solid color layers under it with flannel on the bottom with the right side facing out. Since I ran out of the printed flannel used on the wolf blocks I had to find something that would coordinate: black flannel to the rescue!  I made up 8" wide strips in the right lengths, sewing the channels, cutting open, washing and drying, trimming to 7" wide strips and sewing onto the wolf blocks

Sewing the chenille sections together

This could be really messy as I barely had enough of the finished section to sew together without cutting everything down again. Then I found out on the last pieces I put through the wash and dry routine had sections I forgot to cut!

The before and after of the chenille process

When it was all assembled, black flannel binding added, I had to put it through the wash again and this time it all came back fluffed out:

Quilt front, above, back below

After each washing I needed to cut off extra threads but this final washing was really final with most of it already trimmed and ready to go. It feels somewhat heavy and might make a nice lap quilt but since it's 50" square it's not tiny either. I had a great time making this quilt and have another one with the Christmas fabric in the planning stages. Remember how this started out as a flannel project? I only used  flannel on the back so I still have that basket full. I did cut out 8" squares and have them sorted into potential quilts and that can be half the battle. Now I've had enough of quilts and I'm working on sewing up some clothing for the summer weather that is coming soon, we hope. Minnesota, my adopted state, has stunning summers but she does make you beg for them!