Machine Overload!

We have been doing some re-evaluating around our house. Deciding what to keep and what to get rid of either by giving it away or selling it. My husband especially has been purging out in his shop. He has collected a lot of sewing machines over the last few years and needs to thin that collection out. I also have a few machines I am ready to get rid of. Here are pictures of some of them. Here is a Singer hand crank model

Here is another old Singer with very fancy decals

This is one I got at an antique store and my daughter used it when she was in college.

This is one of two treadle machines I have. This one has the prettiest cabinet but I like the look of the other machine so this one is going to go.

Here are some of the others that are going. All of our machines are at least 50 years old.

And finally, I am selling my Featherweight. 

I bought it because so many people rave about theirs and how much they love Featherweights but I just wasn't that taken with it. It is a nice machine but I have others that I like more and I just don't have space to store so many.

All of these machines are for sale, along with others and some cabinets that at least some of the machines will fit in. If you or anyone you know is interested in one or more of them, let me know.

Here comes the sun...

...okay, just sunbreaks but it is a start. I have gotten out in the fresh air a couple times so far but not nearly enough! Still working on apple tree pruning when I should be planting and weeding. I am not going to be doing that for a while though because the ground is just too cold and wet! Here is a picture of some of the daffodils that are blooming profusely right now.


I am finally getting things accomplished in the sewing room though. I got blocks made for 5 people in the round robin I am in. We only have 10 in our group so we decided to make 2 blocks per person so that means I got 10 blocks done this past week and they are in the mail to the next person! I think I have done 7 of the 10 backets (including mine).

Last Saturday my niece, Katie, and I made the trek down to Fabric Depot in Portland OR. We spent about 5 hours in the store filling our cart 4 times! From most of the bolts I only took 1/4 - 1/2 yard but it was still quite the pile! Halfway through we took our load out to the car and ran over to Burgerville for lunch. It is just across the street and not available around here so it is our favorite restaurant on fabric buying trips. I was able to get fabric for two quilts that I have been commissioned to make (and hope to get started on soon) and also fabrics for my neighbor for our quilt exchange. Sally has asked for neutrals for her quilt so I went to the cutting table with a wide range of neutrals. The cutter said "You are making a quilt with just whites?" In reality, none of them were white, more a range of creams to dark tans. Obviously , this woman has never seen some of the stunning quilts made with only neutrals!

So Sunday I started serging the edges of my fabric in preparation for prewashing and my serger just gave up the ghost! I got it third hand probably 20 years ago in a joint purchase with my mother (we each paid $25!) and it has served me well all these years. I went online to see how much new sergers are running these days and was pleasantly surprised to find that the prices are much lower than they were years ago! I checked reviews and decided to purchase the Brother 1034D. It should arrive on Monday. I am planning on taking the old one to my local sewing machine repairman to see if it can be salvaged or maybe just let my husband play with it and see what happens.

So my sewing room is full of piles of fabric waiting to be serged and piles on the floor waiting to be prewashed and I can't get started on those quilts so it forces me to get some other things finished. Yesterday I got the borders on the spider web quilt I am putting together for the quilt guild for a foster child's graduation quilt.


Today I hope to get it basted and quilted so it is finished before Monday when my new serger arrives!!!

Extreme Makeover: Sewing Room Edition

One of the activities around our house last week was my daughter and her fiance working on the little house. They got the skylight in and the roof on. Then, on Saturday, my husband hitched it up to the Suburban and towed it out by the 'barn' so if they decide to haul it to wherever they will be living after the wedding it will be accessible. You see, once the rain starts our field is impassable.

We also celebrated my niece's 30th birthday. Her request was a Pirate Barbie cake. After some resistance I caved and this is the result.

On Sunday, my husband, my niece and I took my sewing cabinet off the wall. My brother-in-law made it originally for my mother and when we sold her house I took it and have used it for about 10 years. Now it will go to my sister's house as she has room in her sewing room. It is heavy and huge so it is taking up space in the guest room until we load it in our trailer to take across the state along with some other furniture. You can see a picture of it here. In its place are two dressers we found at two garage sales a week or so ago.

You can see that I have some wall space above the dressers for something but I haven't decided what yet.

Here is a picture of all the stuff from the sewing cabinet all over my sewing table and various bins and boxes of fabric and projects on the floor in front of it.

This is an after picture of the same area. Most of the baskets on the table need to be integrated into the rest of the house over the next few weeks/months!

And here is a picture of the reason for all of this rearranging - my new quilting machine! I have tested it out but I haven't had time to quilt something but maybe later today or tomorrow morning.

Confused?

I am having trouble keeping track of the quilts I have gotten quilted since Saturday morning. I think I finished up number 7 a little while ago. Most of them are smaller quilts but today's was around 70" X 80". Here it is on the machine waiting for me to get back to it!
Here is the first totally finished quilt. It is about 48" X 56".

All the rest are waiting for the hand-sewing on the binding.

I do have two more that I would like to get quilted but I am not sure if I can realistically get them all done. We shall see how it all goes.

More testing

I have done a few rows for the next denim quilt while testing various machines that hubby has been working on. It is so hard to keep track when you have several machines of the same type and each foot pedal is a little different too! They all seem to be doing pretty well so hopefully tomorrow I can get this denim top done. I got some flannel for the backs of two of them but need to find something for the third.

Testing, 1,2,3

My little grandson is back home with Mommy and Daddy and the princess so I have been able to spend some time in the sewing room getting something done. I tested out my new sewing machine making this denim quilt top and it worked nicely once I got the tension set right, etc.
On my way home from dropping off the little guy I met my sister for 'linner' and traded her not so healthy Pfaff 1222 with one of mine. My husband is turning into quite the Pfaff 1222 expert so he got hers running better and also has two others waiting for me to do some test sewing. It is so handy to live with your sewing machine repairman! If one needs a good cleaning and oiling I just put it on the dining room table and he takes it out to the shop, checks it out and brings it back in! All of these machines are almost 40 years old so a lot of parts are no longer available and we will have to start cannibalizing as time goes on.

I have one more denim quilt top to sew and then I need to get three quilted and bound and in the mail for Christmas. I would love to get that done this week but we shall see!

Happy Birthday to ME!

It is a few weeks early but here it is. A nearly new Pfaff 122SE. There are no scratches on the work surface which means it hasn't been used much even though it is probably over 30 years old. I haven't had a chance to sew with it yet since the grandson is here visiting for a few days but I hope to sew something in the next couple of days. It has a few differences from my other 1222s, most noticeably the two tone paint job. Also, this model came with snap-on interchangeable feet instead of all the various feet that my others originally came with.

Our Thanksgiving travels took us past Fabric Depot down in Portland so I stopped and stocked up on white-on-whites. I picked up a piece of one white-on-white for my internet quilt-y friend, Jennifer, that has little crabs on it. I used some in a block I made for her and she wanted some for her stash. I also got 3 yards of 108" muslin to use for a project I have coming up. I hope to get it laid out after I take the boy back home to his parents.

About Time

to give you a report on last weekend. My husband decided we would leave on Wednesday instead of Thursday so I had a little less time to get my act together. I did pretty well except for forgetting my sewing table until we were about half an hour from home. We had to turn around and get it but still made it to our daughter's for dinner. The grandkids were wonderful as always. Nearly 4 year old Layden was showing me pictures of the earth in his mom's college textbook and said "Merf! The planet we live on." What a hoot! Fifteen month old Clara amazed me by eating an adult serving of spaghetti and won her papa over by giving him a huge hug when he finally sat down after unloading his stuff from the car.

I headed out the next morning for the quilt retreat in spite of waking up feeling a cold coming on. I bought these 6 fabrics during a quick stop at the new quilt shop in their town and the next little town. I made good time the rest of the way except for a quick stop for a box of kleenex!

I got my stuff all set up and started in on my scrap bin. Over the course of the weekend I finished another 37 crazy quilt blocks but the bin just didn't seem to get any emptier! It wasn't helped by the fact that others kept giving me their scraps! The only other project I worked on over the weekend were these double 4-patch blocks. At the end of the weekend I had 85 finished blocks, 14 half blocks and 74 4-patch blocks. I will cut more 3.5" blocks to finish of the rest of the blocks and then I will figure out what to do with the rest.

The Prize Patrol came by several times and I won this little bundle of fabrics because I had the oldest sewing machine at the retreat. I had a great time at the retreat despite being a bit sick. I especially enjoyed the chance to spend time with my second daughter who currently is working there at the camp in their Outdoor Ed program.

One of Nine

I just finished off the denim quilt while watching The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy with hubby and #2 daughter. One down, 8 to go!

About half of the back of the garage is primered and about half of the front got its second coat. Then before I got too tired to do anything else I added borders to my 2008 Shop Hop quilt top and put a back together out of scraps from the front. That might be my next one to get basted since it is on top of the pile now.

Tomorrow is church, picking up my daughter's friend at the airport and choir practice in the evening so I am not sure any sewing will get done! Oh, and there is laundry to fold!

I promised a picture...

Here it is - all done (okay, I still need to do the label but that is easy-peasy!)
I didn't have enough of any one fabric to use for the binding so I went scrappy, but then I prefer scrappy bindings anyway so it all worked out. I plan to run it through the wash since I had to do so much ripping so there are needle holes in some of the fabrics. Then I will buy a nice red ribbon and once we are done in Colorado I will tie it up all pretty! I really don't think quilts need wrapping!

My husband found this machine on Craig's List this week so I now own a working treadle machine. I haven't tried it out yet but it is supposed to work anyway.

I just love the design of the foot pedal! Now that I have a real working machine I will have to teach myself how to use it.

Yippee!

After a bit of struggling and some ripping, the wedding quilt is finally quilted! It was so nicely basted but then when I was about halfway done it started getting wrinkles in the top and there was nothing to be done but rip! Not a happy time but at least it was pretty easy ripping most of the time. I smoothed it out and re-pinned and went back to the sewing machine and the rest went off without too many hitches! It turned out really well even on my nearly 40 year old Pfaff!

I got the binding machine stitched on and will work on the hand-sewing at craft night tonight and once that is done I will get a good picture of the quilt outside.

New set-up

Yesterday I got the quilting done on the Fruits of the Spirit quilt. I had been doing all my machine quilting on larger quilts standing up at my sewing table, but since I have been having some problems with my feet and legs I needed to find a way to quilt sitting down. I picked up my little SewEzi table at my sister's house last week so I decided to set it up for my Pfaff and used another small table to help support the quilt. It worked wonderfully! My wrist was a little sore from maneuvering the quilt but my legs, feet and back were very happy!


My only problem was that when I got to quilting with a bit more speed the machine started to try to walk off the table! I have some large c-clamps that I use for my quilt frame so I tried just clamping the table to block the machine and it worked. Later, my husband found me this cute little clamp to use in the future.

I got the binding added last night and started hand-stitching it while watching the boob tube and just got that finished off this morning. I still have lots of little threads to tie off and hide but I am so happy with how this quilt is turning out. I also need to make the label but that will have to wait till Monday or Tuesday to get the kids' signatures and a photo to print on it. I hope to take care of the threads this evening and then tomorrow I will get a picture of the whole quilt and also the individual picture blocks to share with all of you. The label photo will come later this week. I guess the quilt will be done in time to be auctioned off.

Meanwhile, the sun is out today so after I do a bit of grocery shopping I am going to get out and finish pruning the apple trees.

Kindness and Goodness

I had a great trip, visit-wise but a long trip travel-wise. Monday I drove the five hours to our daughter's home and then we went over to WSU to pick up our son for a little shopping and his birthday dinner. Back to my daughter's to sleep and in the morning a little cuddle and play time with the kids before I headed off to Sandpoint to deliver my mom's Singer 301 to my sister. I also picked up my portable sewing table. Again a good visit but after a delicious breakfast at a new little restaurant near their house I was on the road home again! A total of about 14 hours in the car by myself.

I got two more 'fruits' done yesterday.
My goal today is to get the last three done and start laying them out to figure out what else I will do for the quilt. I would love to have the top done this weekend so it is just quilting that is left!

No pictures yet

I have been busy in the sewing room working to get ready for the quilt show. I got a couple more small doll quilts finished and also quilted a couple of larger quilts here at home. I am finishing the last binding today I hope and then they can get washed so they are ready for the show.

Doing the machine quilting here at home on my Pfaff 1222 I realized that I really prefer quilting on a stationary machine and moving the quilt sandwich instead of having the sandwich stationary and moving the machine. I feel like I have more control. The Pfaff has a fairly large throat (8") so as long as I am careful I can quilt even a king size quilt. My husband is looking for a machine with a larger throat that might be suitable. Possibly a commercial type machine but it needs to be capable of free motion quilting and have a walking foot for straight line or gently curved quilting. If anyone knows of such a machine please leave a comment and let me know.

Today I am hoping to sort through all the quilts I have here for the show and start getting printed labels made for display purposes. I will try to take some pictures - at least of some of my recent finishes.

I have been thinking about ways to display the quilts at the show since we don't have the stands that most quilt shows use. Some suggestions include, a quilt frame standing on end (I think we will have two), my q-snap quilting frame, ladders, chairs, rocking chairs, sewing machine cabinets, and drying racks. Does anyone out there have any other ideas?

In other news, my son is home for spring break which is very nice but also dangerous - he and his sister are reverting back to childhood and start wrestling on the furniture so I have to threaten them every so often so all the furniture isn't broken this week. Their older sister and her two little ones will arrive on Wednesday to help with the quilt show - I hope the house can withstand the fun that will ensue!

Quilt Retreat Part 1

It has been quite a while since I posted and I am sorry! I was just busy and not in my sewing room very much. I did get another top quilted on the long arm and the binding is on it but I have not finished the handsewing on any of those three bindings because I have been working on getting things ready for our accountant while watching TV instead of doing that hand sewing.

I also spent time getting projects ready to take to the quilt retreat which was this past weekend. I had just enough projects for this retreat but only because I was sick for most of the retreat! The first two nights I was in bed by 8:30 and though I got up at around 6-6:30 in the mornings I was back in bed by 8:30-9 AM! On Saturday I stayed in bed most of the day dozing and doing a little reading or just laying there.

On the up side I really liked my new SewEzi table. My one big project that I worked on was a rail fence top made of many, many 1.5" X 3.5" pieces. As you can see in the second picture, I discovered that when chain piecing smaller pieces they just naturally feed themselves down through the back carrying handle of the table which I though was great because you don't end up with a knotted pile of pieces after doing several hundred!

What I discovered when I ran out of bobbin thread though was even better! I checked on the floor to see if any unsewn pieces had fallen down and discovered this 'wreath' of pieces. And it happens every time when the pieces are fed through that little handle. They form a nice circle and so don't get tangled up at all!

Later today I hope to get pictures taken of the things I worked on and will continue with my retreat update soon.

More Organizing

One would think it was spring and not the dead of winter with all the cleaning/organizing/rearranging I have been doing.

This is a picture of the bookcase that has been the home of our VHS tapes and DVD's for some time. I am not a big fan of videos being on display all the time so I have long been trying to come up with a way to hide them. I suggested a year or so ago that we put all the DVDs in one of those 'wallets' that they make for CDs and DVDs. My husband didn't like this idea and resisted mightily.

When our grandson was visiting after Christmas it became apparent that we needed to get them put somewhere else for his safety - he was climbing the bookcase to get to his favorite movie so he could watch.

So I bought a couple of 'wallets' and a label maker and got started on the project. I made a label for each disc so that we would be able to see the name of the movie or TV show easily and also see how long it is. I had to buy some more holders once it became clear how many movies there really were on those shelves! But, so began the process of reducing this...
...to this.


Now I can work on repurposing the shelf space for something more attractive like some of the tiny sewing machines my husband has purchased lately along with more quilts and maybe even some books!