Marian Drain Presenting at Boise Basin Quilters Guild!

I’ve been so excited about the presenter at our guild this coming Thursday evening that I forgot to post a blog entry about it!

I met Marian Drain at Innovations in 2010 and we’ve been fast friends ever since.  She’s an amazing longarm quilter and teacher who’s developed a style that brings home awards!

I’ve been privileged to host Marian this week and we’ve been having a great time together.  Marian's had me busy with learning some new techniques, working on a new collaboration, and I've taken her to a few of the local quilt shops.

Without further adieu, here’s the link for the meeting information:

https://www.boisebasinquilters.org/program-for-june-20th-2013/

Happy Ending–The Final Chapter

So, you might be wondering how the story, uh, quilt, ended after I found the binding fabric for the Lone Star graduation quilt.

The answer is…Wonderfully!

Here it is, all 98” x 98”, in all its glory, shown on a king sized bed.

I wanted to give it a lot of texture, but I didn’t want it to be “boring”, aka, too old fashioned, considering this is going to be used by an 18 year old high school graduate, who is off to college.

I used double layers of batting to take up the fullness and prevent the dark backing from showing through to the front.  Hobbs 80/20 was the bottom layer and I put the highest loft poly I could find on top of that.  I have to say, there was still a lot of fullness, and quite a challenge in some areas, even with the additional batting, but I probably would have been bald if I’d not taken those additional steps.

I used Aurfil thread to stabilize the quilt, then changed to Omni thread on the cream colored sections, Glide on the stars, and even used some King Tut variegated thread on the center star.

My goal was to highlight the star and minimize any attention to imperfect piecing, and I think I accomplished this goal.  I’m quite proud of how this turned out!

I’m sure the graduate will cherish her grandmother’s quilt and I think it will stand the test of time.

Improved Hackett’s Beauty–Update

I’ve been working with a fellow Onion (that is, a Treadle On member) from Michigan to get a shuttle that will fit the Improved Hackett’s Beauty treadle I bought last summer.  We finally found a shuttle and bobbin, and I’m really excited!  It turned out that the Eldredge E shuttle was the perfect fit.

I borrowed a treadle belt tool and got the belt installed, but the machine was really noisy, like something wasn’t right.  I was pretty sure the clangy sound was coming from the foot pedal, and as I was playing with last weekend, the pedal "fell off" the machine!  That wasn’t too surprising, as the bolts that were holding it in were at an angle, instead of holding everything in straight.  So, I cleaned up the metal bar underneath the pedal, got some Triflow in there to loosen it up (I’ll add grease later) and put it back together and now only a little clangy noise left!

I tried to adjust a bolt on the pitman (I'm not sure if that's the term or not) to get rid of the rest of the noise, but it won’t tighten up any further so that’s probably just how it is.

It was so fun to see that it was actually treadling.  However, there was an intermittent rubbing sound and I realized that I’d installed the belt incorrectly; it was winding through one of the supports underneath.  I disconnected the belt, re-threaded it, tightened it up and re-connected it, and, no surprise here, the rubbing sound disappeared.

I also made a shuttle cover out of an old credit card, which is pretty nifty, so still need to keep my eye out for a real one.

I also found some help threading it!  You can see from this side view that it’s not exactly intuitive!  I realized that I’m missing the bobbin winder finger, but I was able to wind a little bit of thread on the bobbin.  I’ve had to work on getting the tension right, and it’s making stitches, but they’re not as good as I’d like so I’ll have to continue to work on that.

The next thing I need to address is that the machine doesn't lift up flush with the rest of the cabinet.  I discovered that when I push up on a bar underneath that is connected to the chain in the back it will sit flush, so now I have to figure out if the mechanism simply needs to be tightened, or if the chain needs to be adjusted.  I can't imagine how to adjust the chain!!

I also found a 15x1 needle and got that installed, however, it’s not the size of needle the machine calls for.  I was able to make it work by moving the needle down in the needle holder so that the shuttle could catch the thread.  That could also affect the stitches so I’ll have to see if I can find a longer needle. 

I am SO close to having it all put together!!  And I couldn't have done it without help from my new friend in Michigan.  I love the internet!

Happy Ending!

Have you ever had to call a customer to ask if you had their binding?  Or, if they gave it to you, what did it look like?

This is not the call you want to have to make, but when your deadline is looming near, it’s the best approach.  And the exact conversation I had with my customer tonight.  Can you say “embarrassed”?

This was not the call I wanted to make, but luckily I found the missing fabric, hidden inside a red bag that was in plain sight, while I was on the phone with her!

At least I got a few other piles cleaned up in the process!

The photo is just a tease, the photos will be posted when the binding is completed.  It’s beautiful, if I say so myself!

The “Columbian” Treadle – Chicago Sewing Machine Co.

You know what happens when you have too many machines?  You think you’ve told everyone about them all, when you really haven’t!
I got this treadle right before I went on vacation.  It’s called The Columbian and was made by the Chicago Sewing Machine Company.
I found trade literature from the Smithsonian website, which I'd seen before but never got further than I have tonight.  The former name of the company was Tryber & Sweetland Manufacturing Company, 1879-1882.  So I searched on that name which lead me to the SewMuse website:
http://www.sewmuse.co.uk/american%20sewing%20machine%20manufacturers.htm
Tryber and Sweetland became the Chicago Sewing Machine Company in 1875 and then were incorporated from 1882-1902.  They made 11 machine models (if you count the numbered models separately):
No’s 1 – 5, 7, 11
Chicago Low Arm Singer
Imperial High Arm
The Columbian
The Peerless
I still haven't found a manual, reference to any parts, or any other photos of similar machines.  If I can’t find an original part I’ll need to get something machined to fit over the shuttle in order to use it.
If any of these machines sound familiar to anyone, and you know of any resources, I'd appreciate that info.

Family Vacation

My brother and his family lives on the East coast, my mom and I both live on the West coast.  Subsequently, we don't get together very often, but this year we made a special effort t get together for a family vacation, during the kids' Spring Break.

It was fun to get together and see the changes in the kids.  After all, it's been at least 3 years since I've seen them and they now range in age from 10 to almost 13.  Family dynamics can always prove interesting, especially when everyone has strong personalities and stronger opinions, but we managed to compromise and everyone got to do something they enjoyed. :-)

First on the list was a visit to the Liberty Bell.  I've wanted to see it since I was in 6th grade, during the bicentennial, and it brought me to tears.

We were able to visit the Hershey

and Synder-of-Hanover factories, where industry of the nation was demonstrated, and where my engineer brother was able to better explain some of the technologies that impacts his daily life.

My mom has always wanted to visit Gettysburg, and we spent one afternoon at the museum, cylorama, and battlefield.

Since I'm the only quilter in the family, I thought for sure I wouldn't be able to visit any quilt shops; unthinkable for most quilters visiting Amish country!  So, when my sister-in-law suggested that I put together a list of places to visit so we could fit something in, I was delighted!

Fortunately, I'd met a quilter in the Denver airport, Carole, from Quilts By Carole. Since Carole is familiar with the area, she later texted me some suggestions for places to visit, and once again I wished I could have convinced my family to make this a quilting vacation!  I had a great time talking with her and and found out we had a lot in common. She offered me a bottle of water and shared that she is also an ABM Innova owner with her own quilting business, the same passion for technology and quilts, and even has the same cell phone! We simply didn't have more time to find out what else we had in common!


There were so many places I would have loved to go, but with only one day allotted for such activities, and lots of distance to cover, I was lucky that my mom agreed to one quilt shop stop, in addition to our Amish community stop. We went on an Amish buggy ride, visited an Amish dairy farm, and found Bird-In-Hand Bake Shop where we had the best caramel rolls I've had in the longest time; they reminded me of the ones my mom used to make when I was a kid.

We traveled about the Pennsylvania countryside and Mom got to see the farms and scenery along the back roads, always a favorite activity of hers. Eventually we found Burkholder's Fabrics in Denver, PA, which houses approximately 33,000 bolts of fabric....with only 40 minutes before closing time!

I met the owner who explained how the fabric was organized in each of the three rooms and started browsing.  Keeping in mind my objective to finish some works in progress, I purchased a fat quarter bundle in various shades of blue that was half off so I could increase the size of the blue rail fence quilt I'm making; if not the size, at least there will be greater variety!  I completed my transaction 1 minute before closing; it was probably a good thing I only had 40 minutes!

Getting together with family has definitely helped me get my mind off the stress of work, home chores, and unfinished quilts.  I'm eager to get back home, see my husband, "the quilt guardians" and to start quilting tomorrow, working on customer quilts, with periodic breaks moving loads of laundry from washer to dryer.

Have you ever traveled with a family of seven??

My Favorite Quilting Tool

Know what this is?

It started out as a pad trimmer for my dogs, but it runs on a battery and vibrates too much and they hated it.

Now, I rip out stitches with it, and it’s my favorite quilting tool.  Mostly I use it on long border or backing seams, strip pieced strips, or when I have boo boos to fix on blocks.

If something is on the quilt frame, though, I’m usually stuck with ripping out stitches with the point of my snips.  I got “lucky” this time because it was just the ditch work I put in place that I had to take out so it was a relatively easy process.

Why would I take out a bunch of ditch work?  Because I decided that I really needed to use a different batting to deal with this fullness in my customer’s quilt, to make it look the best it can.  That, and to save my sanity!

And it really will look awesome, once it’s finished!

This is not the only reason it’s been so long since I posted.  Work has been really busy and I’ve been putting in long hours.  I finished up the Foundational Quilting Skills quilting class that I taught via Community Ed in March so now I have a few more quilts in the queue, behind these other 2 large quilts.  And,  I also recently helped launch the new website for Boise Basin Quilters and there’s still cleanup work to do.

That’s not, as Paul Harvey used to say “the rest of the story” but that’s all for now.  Enjoy the rest of your week!