The little featherweight had a work out today – my nine year granddaughter finished a doll quilt that she started last year.  Most of the little quilt was hand pieced.  Right here she is putting on the final borders.

We decided that if she was going to finish this little project that it would be machine quilting – just to get it done!!  Kind of the blind leading the blind seeing as I have not done many that way.  I had no safety pins along with me.  Quilters Dream batting was used so most of the time the fabric and the batting held together pretty well.  We have a little bit of wrinkles on the back but it isn’t bad.

Ciera attaching the final borders and did the machine quilting – I showed her how to do the first little bit and then she took over and did it herself.  I got the binding on for her and the hand stitching – done!

Ciera and her scrappy hand pieced (almost all of it) done mostly by herself with a little help from her mom during the past year.  I haven’t a clue if she will ever want to do this again, but she has tried it and now I will sit back and see if she shows interest in doing more.

Some of the Thanksgiving feast.

The pretty table.

Grandson Utah watching tv after getting home from hunting with his dad – no lucky but there is always another day for that.

Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving.

I have heard a lot of talk lately on refurbishing and repainting Featherweights.  I had to get mine out of its bag and look it over to see if it really needed it or if I was satisfied with it.  Although the main reason for taking it out of it’s bag is that I have only room for one machine to be out at a time and I hadn’t used it for awhile.  It is time to put the featherweight back out and use it again.

My Featherweight – yes it has some paint chips on the front there, and someone didn’t cover it up when they repainted their room white (not me – former owner) as I can see a couple dots of white paint here and there, it isn’t shiny new paint on it.  It would look pretty in a bright new red paint, or blue, or silver or whatever color a person wants as the people who paint them do them in any color of the rainbow.  But would it still look like the  antique that it is – would fresh paint devalue it or increase the value?  I don’t know – I like it as is for now though and will decide on paint if and when I really feel like I have the extra money to spend on it – $300 is a little steep for me right now when I don’t need it — (that is the amount I have had heard it cost) I have better things to spend money on right now than that.      (the masking tape is for a quarter inch seam – just me, I like a little additional reminder of where it is).

I was going to bring my Janome with me to our daughters house for Thanksgiving as the granddaughter has a little doll quilt that needs to be finished and somehow she isn’t going to do it unless grandma helps her out.  I thought the Janome might be better for her to use as it has the start stop button and the slide switch that controls the speed – which could be put  really slow for her.  But the featherweight takes up so much less room in it’s little red bag. I kind of think she would get a kick out of using this machine don’t you – and I would be right there with her — I have a feeling I will be the one doing all the work anyhow.

So now that it is out of it’s bag, I need to set it up this weekend and put it through some tests, oil it up, and check and make sure all is working well again.

As far as quilting goes – I have made more progress on the “Looking Through the Fence” quilt, I actually got a lot done yesterday – 3/4’s of the way for sure – 3 corners done.  I even got some work done on the wedding/signature quilt – “Heather & Jacks” – a ways to go, I’m not sure if it is even at the halfway mark – I hope to get it done this winter.

Yes I decided I better get back to work on my second Dear Jane – “Insanity Revisited” now that I have gotten some projects done and others under control   This week I managed to finish two triangles — I believe I have 45 more triangles to make and the 4 cornerstones.  I wasn’t as neat at them as I could be, but you know I hate to admit it but I have kind of lost interest in this quilt.  I will finish it but I just don’t find it as interesting as I used to – I guess because there are so many other quilts out there to make.

Triangle #6:

Triangle #7:

Awhile back I had ordered a new carry bag for my featherweight.  I thought it was much smaller than it turned out to be and was very dissatisfied with it.  The bag will be used in the camper instead to store all of our books.  It was a much larger bag than I needed for my featherweight – from the web site that I ordered it from I was under the impression that it was much smaller – the hazards of ordering on line.

I found a different bag last week instead that is especially made for the featherweight and I love it!  It is a red padded bag with handles and shoulder strap (if you need parts for your featherweight or interested in the bag I got it at the site that the link goes to):

It fits in perfectly and has two side pocket for extension cords and foot pedal and plug in.

Maybe my foot can give you an idea of the size

I used it this morning at the quilt group and managed to get all my stuff in these two bags.  The bag fits easily in the car and seeing as the sewing machine is only 12 pounds I can carry the bag without too much trouble.  If I am carrying too much stuff I do have a portable thing with wheels that I can stack it all on – an old thing that you can put a suitcase on or whatever that you used to use before wheels started to be on everything!

I worked on my Star Crazy BOM this morning and finished two of the 4 stars needed.  I also have to make 5 Irish Chain blocks.  I did not get much done – we were just talking too much   I hope to get most of these done this weekend – it is supposed to rain so unless we go someplace for a day I will be in the house and work on them.

I feel like I was barely home for the last two days.  On Thursday I drove into North Little Rock to meet my daughter for lunch and shopping.  We went to a Greek place, my son-in-law wanted to come to lunch too so he joined us for short while then he went his way and my daughter and I spent the day wandering from shop to shop.  Mel is the “queen” of bargan shopping.  She loves going through the “Good Will” type of stores and can find bargains like you wouldn’t believe.  She has a jacket that she bought last week at a store called Savers (a used clothing store) that still had the tags on it – it was brand new and someone donated it – the tag said it was $320.00 from Saks Fifth Avenue and she got it for under $10. a really nice black short jacket.   We didn’t find any deals like that on Thursday – I thought I found a good one for a short while a really good pair of jeans that I know sells at $80 and they only wanted $5 and didn’t look like they had even been worn but they were too big and I am not good at altering jeans   I did find a new pair of Capri’s on sale at Belks for $4.98 marked down from the original $40 – I grabbed those after I tried them on and they fit!

On Friday I went to the all day quilting group a combination of three different quilting/sewing groups were there.  But it rained and rained and I think a combination of weather and sickness kept some people home so we topped off at 10 people.  Because of that we did all of our sewing in the small room and used the big room next door to lay out all of the quilts to see what people had.

I don’t have names of who made what but here are some of the quilts:

#1

#2

#3, I love this wild looking print of the black, red and white. this one just needs the binding on it now.

#4 another of the same type of design – a lot of times the Friday morning group all work on the same pattern and change little bits here and there to suit them.

#5, this is a mystery quilt that some of the ladies have been working on – I believe there were two more being made at the tables while we were sewing but I didn’t get photos.

#6 – the work area as you can see from the sewing machines.  We ordered pizza and went into the large room next to us to eat.  If we had a larger group we would have set up in that room instead or over flowed into it.  My stuff is in the lower right hand corner.  I brought my little featherweight machine with me and worked on the final 20 blocks for the Bow Tie Medallion.  Glad to report that I am finished with those blocks – now I just need to square them up a little.  Featherweights are quite popular it seems (I wonder why ) one on both sides of me although one was still in it’s box, I wish I would have remembered to take a photo – she had a pretty lime green painted one.

All of the blocks stuffed in my box – I sure hope I have counted right and they are all here!!  I do not want to cut more but I’m glad to say I still have a little bit of fabric leftover.

All in all it was a good day but I can’t sit and sew all day, my back was killing me by 2 and I was getting stiff, I excused myself and went and got my grocery shopping done as the rain had stopped and got them home and plenty of time to stretch out a bit before we went out to supper.

Today it is working around the house and yard with Mike and I do not know if I will even touch any sewing until this evening!

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes and happy birthday to those of you who share the same day or very near to it!

I have been really busy this past week working on the bow tie blocks.  I am now done with the large bow tie blocks and need to get the 20 blocks cut that I had miscounted and had run short of and then sew them together.

Here is how I work on these blocks – I do not necessarily like assembly line work but sometimes it is a lot faster to do it that way then work on one block at a time.  I keep all of my colors in order so that each step goes quicker.

First I attach all of the little “knots” for the bow tie:

The long string of work – this will end up making 36 blocks:

Trim the access off and square up if necessary:

Get the assembly line going again.  It makes it much, much easier if you keep your colors stacked up exactly how you need them to assemble the final blocks.

Get busy sewing:

After you get done with this part, press to the color side and using one pin I’m ready for the final steps.

Press the final blocks open and you are done!!

Well  other than the miscounted 20 blocks that I am missing I am done – so that means I am not done! darn it   I will bring that fabric and cutting equipment with me on Friday.  Two sewing groups are combining on Friday for an all day sew in at the church where the Friday morning quilters sew – I use to go to that group on a really regular basis, then I got side tracked and have not gone to it in over a year or so – maybe even two at the rate time seems to fly.  The other group meeting is the group that meets the first Thursday night of the month which I go to most every month. I believe that it is possible that some of the guild members might show up too – how many I do not know – I will bring my camera as there are certain to be some nice eye candy to share.

Tomorrow will be a day off of sewing as my daughter that lives in North Little Rock gave me a call and wanted to have a “girl day” – she is off work tomorrow so I am meeting her at her house and we will go to lunch ( a treat for my birthday a day early) and do some shopping.  Better to do it now because as it gets closer to the holidays I do not see much of her as she is one of the assistant managers at J.C.Penney and they work them hard as the holidays get closer!

I will get the design wall out next week and start figuring out color placement and design layout.

Last year, I don’t remember when, I had an idea to use up some of my scraps by making scrappy 6 1/2 inch pineapple blocks. The idea is to eventually make enough of them for a queen size quilt.  Only problem is I am slow at paper piecing which is the method I am using.  I actually worked off and on all day on one block!!  Of course the rest of the day I was blowing my nose so maybe it is possible I could have finished two blocks instead if I wasn’t grabbing Kleenex?  I am estimating right now that I need about 256 blocks to make a quilt that is about 100 x 100 inches large.  I have 5 finished – 4 of them from last year LOL.

my 5 blocks. Some of the color choices weren't perfect as I had several dark colors too close to the same shade next to each other, but I will be more careful in the future - none of these are getting tossed out!! and I'm not picking them apart either With so many blocks in a quilt I really don't think anyone will notice a few bad color choices here and there.

I will continue to work on this quilt for several years I bet.  I had sore fingers from quilting and just didn’t feel like working on any of my other projects today so went back to this one.  I used the Singer Featherweight.  I thought I needed some practice with the machine as I had not used it since Bea had worked on it.  The machine worked great although at first I thought I was going back to the same old problems with tension but then realized when I put it in the storage bag that I had bumped the upper tension dial.  Got that back to where it should be and practiced threading and putting the bobbin in and then got started sewing.

Learning how to use my new phone has been interesting.  There are aps for everything it seems but I do not want to spend money on buying them.  We found one ap for the weather channel that is free and you select gps and it finds the location wherever you are and tells you what the weather will be and shows you a weather map too.  That sure will come in handy when we are traveling.

I will select the winner for the give away tomorrow and then mail it out on Monday – good luck and thank you to those who participated.  You still have time this evening if you want to get in on it.

The bag I sent for to store my featherweight in when I am not using it is larger than I thought it was! I checked the measurements – but oh well – extra room in the bag for supplies but that will make it too heavy for my weak elbows to carry.  But not a problem, quite a few years back I had gotten a collapsible wheel carrier for a different sewing bag set up that I had.  It had been put away in the closet but I found it, dusted it off and it is back in use!  Good thing I tend to hold onto things for awhile.

the bag on it's little wheel cart. The little stand goes up when not in use. The black straps are elastic and pull over the bag to hold onto the cart.

The bag has three outside pockets – plenty of room for cords and extension cord too.  Inside the top of the bag are two zipper pockets.  I have left the machine threaded right now to remind myself how to thread properly until I know for sure I won’t forget!! That happens when you do not use a machine everyday.

If it looks like it will be too loose (no strap to hold in place) I will get a couple pieces of foam and cut to fit along the sides to hold it tight in the bag. Mainly though this is a place to store it and for taking to a sewing night now and then. The insert and the stack of books for the table level are stored in the bag for now too so I won't loose track of them.

Sugar and Spice in progress. This one won't take real long to quilt it is about 43" x 49" I think. I am doing a simple cross hatch and outline around the flowers.

a close up

And what have I been doing today? Me and my John Deere have been busy cutting and mulching! I do not mind cutting grass and over the years I have been the one to do it most of the time because of the long hours Mike always worked. I get some good thinking done on my John Deere Now of course if I had a push mower I sure as heck wouldn't be doing it!!

I have the cushions out for the warm weather and have already made use out of the this area and the porch - what a nice relaxing area (until the loud traffic goes by - at least that is not continuous out here)

When I got my singer featherweight back in working order (or should I say got myself in working order ) I faced the problem of where would I sew with it.  As you all know I have a small sewing room and I do not want to have to put a new table out.  My SewEzi table has an acrylic piece that fits around the Janome just right.  That is how you order them.  With each sewing machine you need an acrylic piece that fits around it.  The height on the table also has height adjusters.  The Janome and the Featherweight are not the same height which meant in order to use the table for both machines I would also have to adjust the height each time I would  switch machines.  After a couple hours of thinking it over I decided to go ahead and order the acrylic piece to match up with the featherweight and find something that can be tucked under the machine to adjust the height.

I can’t believe how fast the SewEzi people are – I ordered the piece on Tuesday evening and it arrived today!!  How is that for fast service.  Right now I have two books that happened to be handy and 2 Connecting Threads catalogs that were handy and stacked them under the machine and it was exactly right.  I measured the stack and it is exactly 5/8″ so that means next time we pick up some plywood or something of that sort I will get a piece and have Mike cut it to fit the base of the featherweight.  Then whenever I switch out machines I do not have to do any adjusting of the height on the table- which really, really would be a pain to do.

This is how the Janome sits in the SewEzi table and what the acrylic plate looks like - each is fashioned for the base of each machine.

you see these white cylinder pieces - there are four of them. These are what need to be adjusted for the height of each machine - now you can see why I say I don't want to do that and that it would be a pain to do.

these are the new height adjusters that arrived with the plate - they really and truly are a pain to use. Here is the new acrylic plate for the featherweight.

The temporary height adjuster to test the theory out

this is how the featherweight sits in the SewEzi table with the temporary height under it. When I have a piece of wood or whatever I find that is the right height that piece will always be put with the acrylic plate so they are always together handy to use. This will be so much easier and quicker to do than adjust the height with the pieces you are supposed to use with it.

I’m glad I went ahead and measured and decided to order the plate.  It will be so nice to just switch out the machines and not to have to find another space to set up in.  I have ordered a bag to keep the featherweight in and I already have a travel case for the Janome so whenever I switch out machines I will just place it in it’s bag and it will be out of the way (which means under the quilting frame) and yet close by to switch back out again when I want it.