You Never Know What You’re Gonna Find….

My customer, Carol, came over yesterday to revisit her thread choices for her quilting projects.  She also brought along  3 sewing machines she had been gifted, as she knows I collect vintage sewing machines, and had asked if I’d be interested in taking a look at them.

After we confirmed her thread and batting choices, we took the machines out.  One was a Singer Ultralock 14 serger with lots of rust and the area next to the throat plate was missing, so it would be impossible to sew on it without replacing that part.  She’s not looking for a rehab project, so we moved on to the next one.

A Singer Touch & Sew 758 was revealed when we removed the protective plastic bag she had used during transport.  The Touch & Sew line, especially in the 700 series, doesn’t have a good reputation.  The owners had so much trouble sewing with them, even after taking them to the repair shop several times, they got set in the back of a closet, never to be seen again.  They weren’t cheap machines, either.

At first glace, it didn’t look too bad, a bit of corrosion on the throat plate, a bit of light rust on the needle bar, but those are easily corrected.  I was interested to open the top and take a peek.  Once I removed the top, I could see more rust, but really, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.  Still, I was certain I didn’t want to take on this project!

Carol said she’d plugged it in and tested it out when she got it and it sounded terrible.  Well, no machine is going to be happy after sitting in a garage for a long time, and it certainly needed some TLC.

That was as far as I was going to take my inspection, but, at Carol’s urging, we took the bottom cover off to look inside.

As soon as the cover started to come away from the base, I immediately recognized that we were invading someone’s home.  And he was still there.  In skeleton form.  Graphic images warning: if you want to view the corpse, click on the photo and zoom in to the lower right section of the sewing machine case.

The interior was packed with shredded plastic bags and bits of sparkly yarn from Christmas past.  Not surprisingly, we also found that the wiring had been chewed.  No wonder this machine sounded terrible!  It’s a wonder the whole mess didn’t catch on fire!

I was sure glad I’d put down some newspaper before I opened it up!  Gloves were immediately donned, and after I cleaned up the mess, I made sure to use several disinfectant wipes on the table and all of my tools, too!

Carol’s last machine turned out to be a Singer Quantum LE from the early 1990’s.  It was in pretty nice shape, although it needs a new power cord.  Of course, after the mouse nest, I completely forgot to take photos of the nice machine!  Ha!

Carol’s going to take all of them to my OSMG (Old Sewing Machine Guy), Jerry, at Treasure Valley Sew n Vac.  He used to work for the Singer Sewing Machine Co, and he specializes in vintage sewing machines.  He can use the first two machines for parts, and he’ll service the Singer Quantum LE so Carol can use it for regular sewing while her new embroidery machine is hard at work.  Jerry doesn’t work on the computerized parts of a machine, but he said he’s never had to on the Quantum, so I’m confident he’ll get it fixed up and sewing perfectly.

If you’re in the Boise area and have a machine you want serviced, call Jerry, he does a great job.  His phone number is 208-870-8148.  He’s a vendor at the Idaho Indoor Community Farmer’s Market at 4983 N. Glenwood, which is at the corner of Glenwood and Chinden.  Several of the vendors there just moved from the Boise Flea Market at Cole and Barrister.  The new venue has a lot more space, some new vendors and a different feel to the place.

Quilting again!

 

Well, it seems that my machine is fixed, at least well enough to quilt with.  It still has a couple of quirks to it; I can’t quite put the action into words so haven’t called tech support about it yet.  I’m just glad I was able to complete a quilt without any trouble!

Of course, I was so excited to get it to my customer, Lorraine, that I forgot to take photos!  This is the sneak preview I sent her, so you’ll just have to wait until I get a photo of the full quilt from her.

This is one of the Rail Fence quilting that came from my Foundational Quilting Skills class I taught last winter through Continuing Ed.  I’m planning to invite Lorraine back to spend some time re-learning how to attach the binding because it’s been awhile since she’s been able to sew and wants to do a good job on it.  Not only was it fun to teach the class, I also made a new friend!

In the meantime, tonight I tried my hand at free motion quilting on my Singer 201-2 tonight.  It wasn’t the smoothest experience; it seems the lever wasn't "hopping" with the foot and I was getting large runs of skipped stitches.  I even swapped out the all metal hopping foot with another one I had that had a plastic stem.  It's possible, though, that I tried something too thick so I’ll try a different project another time.

Tonight’s project was a bag of scraps that will be donated to the Humane Society for crate beds.  Lots of quilters here in the Treasure Valley are making the beds but aren’t quilting them.  I think they’ll get all lumpy when washed so I wanted to add a bit of quilting and this was a perfect opportunity to try out one of my vintage machines.

It was fun, too, because I learned how to drop the feed dogs on this machine, and I’ve been wanting to figure this out for awhile.  Still, I think I prefer the longarm!

Enjoy your Halloween!

It’s Been a Busy Two Weeks!

Customer quilt complete!

I finally finished my customer’s 112” x 112” Double Irish Chain quilt!

She provided a Hobb’s washable wool batting and I quilted an overall meander in the chains, a freehand boxy leaf pattern in the inner white border and a piano key on the outer border.  I used a continuous line stencil pattern for the design in each of the setting blocks, tracing it from a printout of the stencil using the laser light on the back of the machine.  It turned out great, and my customer really likes it!

Longarm machine update

Two weekends ago I spent a full day with tech support again and we adjusted the electronics on my machine.  It seems to be sewing a lot better, but I’m taking it slow because I don’t want to create yet another problem with the customer quilt I have on the frame.  Once I get the off of there, I can put on a test piece and quilt the way I usually do.  If it works, I’ll be back in business.  If it doesn’t, then ABM is going to see if they can route a technician through Boise to get this resolved once and for all.

What’s New

This past week my mom came to visit because we got tickets to go to the Gordon Lightfoot concert!  We had a great time and even though I couldn’t take any time off work I was able to work from home.  That was awesome!

The Boise Basin Quilters quilt show was this weekend, too.  Mom isn’t a quilter and wouldn’t have had as much fun as I do when I go, so instead we went to the Farmer’s Market before her flight back home.  After I dropped her off I went to the trunk show lecture that our featured artist, Marsha McCloskey, gave.

It was raining on Sunday and with all of the activity of the busy week, I didn't want to go out, even to the quilt show!   I went, though, because I'd ordered some batting from the Winline Textiles vendor.  I knew I'd enjoy myself after I got there, and I did.  It was a really good show and I got lots of photos so I could refer to the quilting later for some ideas.  I even got to talk to my friend, Julie, afterwards.  All in all, I enjoyed the day but I got absolutely nothing done this weekend.

I've come down with a sore throat, which started yesterday, so I'm working from home today with a colleague and trying to rest a bit, too.

Serenity Now!!

Forgive me, Readers, for today is exactly two months since I’ve last written a blog post.

It’s not that I’ve forgotten about the blog, in fact I’ve had lots of things I’ve wanted to share with you.  It’s just been a matter of time to sit down and actually type out events as they happen.  For. Two. Months.  In between all of the mechanical work I’ve been doing on my long arm quilting machine, and all of the quilt repair that goes hand in hand with a broken quilting machine.

I’ve been battling tension and timing issues all year.  The thread won’t lay properly, it sits on top of the fabric, the thread constantly breaks, and it takes forever to adjust.  Then, in the middle of the project, it needs more adjustments.  Again.  I even replaced the tension assembly with a new “upgraded” version.  Not only has it been aggravating, time consuming and expensive,  it’s happened on the two largest projects I’ve had all year.  It even caused me to have to skin a quilt.

What’s skinning a quilt, you ask?  It’s when you have to remove all of the stitching from a quilt so that it is no longer a quilt, taken back to being only a quilt top.  I had planned on only removing two rows of stitching because the stitches were bad, but in the process, I put a hole in the customer’s backing fabric.  I was horrified!  So instead of removing two rows of stitching, I ended up taking all of the stitches out and replacing the batting and backing fabric.  This is NOT the conversation a quilter wants to have with her customer!

On July 20th I loaded the double Irish Chain, aka “The Big Quilt”.   This quilt measures 112” x 112” and takes all of the space I have on my frame; I barely have any room to change the bobbin.

You guessed it.  During that project, tech support determined that the timing belt on my machine needed to be replaced and I had to send the front nose piece back to the factory in Houston, TX to be rebuilt.  Bad that the machine is down, but you’d think it wouldn’t be such a bad situation, overall, right?

Except.  I couldn’t remove the part.  It turns out that the shaft that the ball bearing sits on was slightly out of spec and I ended up renting a gear puller to get it off.

And later?  I had to use an emery cloth to sand the shaft down so I could reinstall it.  How did we determine that?  My husband had pressed on the  nose piece so hard that the new bearing popped out of the machined area where it sits in the nose piece.  To reinstall it, I had to remove the entire hook assembly and position finger in order to re-install the bearing back into the nose piece using a 3/4” socket and a mallet, all the while hoping I wouldn’t break the seal on the new bearing.  Of course, timing the machine followed.

Last night I also had to adjust the take up lever position.  This involves removing all of the covers from the machine, loosening the motor mount and adjusting the belts and position of the pulley.  I got out the biggest screwdriver we have to leverage the motor back into place.  I like the big screwdriver, it made the process effortless!  Tonight, I get to put this setting to the test.

So, this is only part of what I’ve been doing this summer.  And now I have a pretty large queue of quilts to complete.  I sure hope I don’t run into any other problems!

Thinning the herd!

I talked to a local woodworker last night who is going to help me fix and refurbish two of the sewing machine cabinets I’ve been storing in the garage.  We determined that the wood on the third cabinet is beyond repair.

So, the cabinet for the Anker went home with him to fix the area that needs to support the sewing machine and in the meantime I need to start stripping the veneer off the cabinet for the Davis VF and trying to figure out how it comes apart.

Part of the deal is that I’m going to throw in the Red Eye treadle head and irons that go with it; most of the wood is rotten and can only serve as a pattern for a replacement top.  The irons need to be washed, brushed with a wire brush and repainted back to their previous glory, but the treadle action is spot on!

While I haven’t gotten to sew on the Red Eye, which is always my goal, I know it’s a very nice machine; when I bought it I was able to turn the handle by hand to get it to sew and have been excited to get it up and running.  Ironically, I thought this one would be the easiest and fastest one to get working.  Once he gets the cabinet built, which will take him hours, it will be an awesome piece.  Of course I’ll go over it and make sure it’s cleaned, oiled and ready to take on a new project.

The upside is I’ll have two working machines that are high on my priority list,  I get to clear out some space in my garage, keeping my husband happier with less clutter, and someone else will get to share this machine.  That’s a winning situation all the way around!

Handspun Yarn!

Today I met with the Emmett Spinners at the Triangle Restaurant in Sweet, Idaho and my friend, Cheri, showed me how to ply singles.

The pink is from Fiber Train 2012 and the dark brown is from Fiber Train 2013, held over Memorial Day weekend in Nampa, Idaho.  The photo of the yarn on the bobbin looks black, but it’s really a wonderful color of  dark brown that has a tint of cherry to it.

I only have standard sized bobbins so I had to break it a part and ply them on 2 different bobbins to use up all of the brown singles.  That means I don’t have one long hank of yarn and I joined the ends with knots.  I chose knots for now, because I have no idea what this is going to become and I just want it held together all in one skein.  Oh, wait, I still have more of the pink to ply with brown before I will be completely finished.

I also got instruction from Rhonda on how to set the twist on the yarn.  I was so excited about having come this far I didn’t want to stop, so after I left the get together I went to Puffy Mondaes and bought a PVC pipe niddy noddy.

During the winding process some of the twist came out of the yarn.  Eventually I cut that part out and re-worked it and then added it back in with another knot.  Purposely adding knots isn’t ideal, but it was either that or lose out on precious yardage.  It only weighs in at 3.8 oz.

Also, I was on the phone with my brother and didn’t have the patience to wait until after the call to research the problem on YouTube or post to the forums.  I really don’t have any patience, despite what I hear when people look at my quilting!

And now I have yarn hanging in my bathroom!

I had planned to spin more of the brown roving tonight, as I didn’t have the same amount of brown singles as I did pink singles when I started today but I’d forgotten my bag of goodies at the restaurant that included the very item I needed to accomplish this task.  So, it’ll have to wait for another time because I have a lot of quilting to do tomorrow!

I can’t believe I finally plied something!

A Perfect Day

A friend asked me recently to describe what a “perfect day” would look like so I could recognize one when it came along.  Here’s what I came up with:

1. Spend time with my husband
2. Start the day off with coffee over email and Facebook.
        Note to self:  that doesn’t mean spend the entire day on the computer!
3. Walk the dogs – this isn’t really exercise because they are Shih Tzu and have very short legs and can only walk about a mile!
4. Exercise for me
5. Work on a personal sewing, knitting, or spinning project
6. Spend time talking to a friend

It’s interesting that as I started making the list more and more items came to mind and any combination of these things could make a perfect day.  It’s very empowering to recognize and acknowledge that I have so many blessings and opportunities.  Truly, our mindset makes a difference whether we see our blessings or only our troubles.

However,  I didn’t add more to my list above only because lately I’ve been over-crowding my days and over-committing my time and I’m tired and stressed.  It’s my own fault, of course.  I’ve been challenged with this balancing act ever since I was a teenager, but it’s also up to me to change this if I want a different quality of life.  I’m taking steps, tiny as they may be, towards this goal.