Treadle Project

Treadle Cabinet

Treadle head. New Ideal R
Vibrating shuttle bobbin

Treadle foot pedal

A couple of friends of mine visited this week–well, we spent a little time together, but mostly they came to attend a treadle sewing machine gathering, not me.  Saturday morning my husband and I went to take a look at what they were doing.  I can’t say I was bitten by the bug, but I did find it interesting.  I remember sewing on my great aunt’s treadle machine.  I’m not even sure why I had to use her machine.   I was in grade school, I think, perhaps doing a 4-H project.  But I digress.

So I came back home after visiting my friend’s  treadle group and pulled up Craigslist and found an advertisement for a treadle sewing machine for $50.  There were other treadles–from $200 to $800, but no, the bug hadn’t really bitten that hard.  So I looked at the $50 one.  When I talked to the man he said it was his grandmothers and that he had stored it in the basement for 25 years since she passed away.  The last two weeks it was stored in a carport wrapped in a tarp (ugh!), as he had to put it somewhere while moving.  When we looked at it, I have no doubt that the man’s account was true.  The laminate on the top has some cracks and bubbles.  Not sure if that can be saved.  The laminate on the inside cover of the top definitely cannot be saved.   The laminate on the back is mostly gone.  If it was laminate.  Well, the back looks awful, regardless.  The head looks like it has been dipped in grime.  And the treadle legs and pedal are so dirty that I cannot tell if there is any paint left under them.

But we decided to buy it anyway.  When we told the man we wanted to actually make it sew again, he knocked it down to $40, because he said that’s what he always wanted to do with it.  Maybe it is worth more.  Maybe it isn’t worth that much.  I don’t know.  But we thought it would be interesting to give it a try and see if we can salvage the cabinet at least.  Make we can make the head sew again.  And $40 wasn’t a huge investment.

The head does appear to be intact–including foot and bobbin shuttle and bobbin.  The bobbin still has green thread in it.  The hand wheel turns easily, as does the foot pedal mechanism.  The belt is still on the machine, but it is no longer intact.  The little wheels on the bottom of the cast iron legs turn freely.  If anyone knows anything about the New Ideal R (made by New Home, I believe), please let me know.  From a little internet surfing last night and what he told me, I think it may be anywhere from 1920-1935.

My husband has done some furniture refinishing before, so I thought he might like a challenge.  I figured at worst we are out $40.

 

De-Stashing: May 2013

Over Memorial Day weekend, I head to the beach in South Carolina to hang out with some of my old quilting buddies.  One of the things I took along was my row-by-row that I did with 7 members of my North Carolina Guild.  I took the box along and made the borders, but did not attach them until I got home.  I kind of got sick of making flying geese and kept rolling around how exactly to do the inner borders.   And the corner pieces!!!    Aack.  I tossed around idea after idea.  I viewed pictures on the web.  I see very little in the way of ideas for corner pieces for a flying geese border–let alone an undulating flying geese border.

In the end, I used a diamond, two more flying geese, and a square to continue the undulating border to a point and then around the corner.  I liked the end result.  I worked on a lot of little projects this month, including the dust cover,  a charity quilt and back, some scrappy blocks, and a couple of gifts of fabric. All in all a good month.  If I can just keep this up through year end.

De-Stashed this Month:         12.75
De-Stashed year to Date:       64.75
Stashed this Month:                 8.50
Stashed Year to Date:               41.75

Net De-Stashed for 2013: 23.00<<Goal for 2013:  Greater than 25 yards De-stashed>>>

For more stash reports, visit Patchwork Times.

Return from Camp

I spent Friday through noon, Sunday at Quilt Camp in South Carolina. Just a group of a couple dozen friends who have a nice get together at the beach. This year the weather was picture perfect and we had a super moon at night.  The first thing we did was work on a quilt for the husband of one of our group who had recently passed.  The rest of the weekend I worked on borders fro my row-by-row quilt. Row-by-row is a row robin where you start with one row and friends attach another row….repeated until each person attach rows, then returned to the owner to add borders or whatever.  I did the row-by row with my North Carolina guild.

I have finished the borders, but had not yet made the cornerstones or attached them….perhaps this week.

I also worked on a small lap quilt for the local women’s shelter.  Top completed.  Pictures to come soon.

Two of my friends were working on my Gettysburg pattern.  Others were working on everything from sundresses, bags, knitting, and all manner and variety of quilts.  I loved getting to see my friends again!  It was a great weekend.  Now back to the salt mines.

The War Against Dust

Finished Dust Cover

Since I started working full-time 4 years ago, I haven’t been able to sew everyday.  Sometimes I find my sewing machine covered with dust.  I have a cover–but really it’s a tote.  I’d have to take the machine out of the cabinet and put it into the tote every time I won’t (and I’d have to know I won’t) return for days.

So around my sewing room I found some ugly purse patterns with some timtex.  And a drawer full of strings.  And a big piece of muslin.  Sounds like a dust cover to me.

1.  I figured I wanted a 10 inch high cover (from my cabinet to top of my machine).  16 inches wide by 7 inches deep.
I cut pieces of timtex:
Two 10 x 16 pieces (front and back)
Two 7 x 10 pieces (sides)
One 7 x 16 piece (top)

String piecing on the diaganol

2.  I drew a diagonal line as a starting point on each of the pieces and began string piecing.  If you haven’t string pieced before, I recommend Bonnie Hunter’s tutorial .  I made sure my strings extended at least one half inch beyond the edge of the timtex.   After completing my string piecing, I trimmed the strings down to extending one half inch all around the edges of my timtex.

3.  Next I sewed the front back and sides together.

Sewing 1/4 inch from the timtex and 1/4 inch from the fabric edge

One last seam to make the box, Top waiting to be added.

I placed my quarter inch foot right down the edge of the timtex, leaving me a quarter inch seam, and leaving a quarter inch of “loose fabric” to the edge of the timtex.  This made it much easier to turn and manipulate my cover.  It, in effect, created “hinges”.

Notice the top is just laying separately.  Laying on top of the top is a piece of muslin to the size of my top.  Muslin doesn’t make a pretty liner.  But, hey, it’s a liner!

Then one last seam to make a four sided box without a top.

4. One of the tough parts is to sew the top on.  For me, the easiest way I have found is to start with the long sides.  Pin the top so that the edges match up to the original side–this means that you will start stitching leaving a 1/4 inch piecing hanging out there.  That’s OK.

See the extra “seam allowance? You don’t line the edge up with the seam- you line it up as if the side seams weren’t there.

DO NOT start stitching right at the seam.  You should be at least 1-2 stitches away from the edge.  Yes, that leaves a tiny, tiny hole in the corner.  But it doesn’t pucker.  And hey, every time you stitch, there is a “hole” from one stitch to the next.  It’s fine.  Don’t get carried away, though.  1-2 stitches is good. 1/8 inch OK.  You can probably get away with 1/4 of an inch on a good day.  But don’t go crazy.

I sew one long side first.  Repeat with next long side.  Then I do the short sides.  Do not sew all the way up to the seams.

5.  Boring part.  Make sides and top of muslin–I made mine longer than 10 inches deep.  I didn’t want them to be short.  Sew quarter inch seams.  Boring.  No picture.  And although I did this part AFTER I sewed the cover together, you might want to do it first to practice those corner seams.  Really.

Wrong side out, but cover and liner wrong sides together–right sides out. Muslin waiting to be trimmed.

6.  Now I already had the cover wrong side out from sewing it together, and the liner was also wrong side out from sewing. So I flipped the muslin as it was easier to manipulate and put the cover and liner wrong sides together.   I took my scissors and trimmed the muslin down to the timtex (carefully–don’t cut your cover).

For a finished edge I did something I don’t normally do.  I wrapped the cover edge over the freshly trimmed muslin and GLUED it down. Then to secure it, I did a decorative stitch with a variegated thread. The decorative stitching also gives a firmer edge to the bottom. The cover is practical, decorative, and machine washable.

Time spent:   about 3 hours.
About half a yard of muslin and about 3/4 of a yard of otherwise fairly useless scraps.
Sewing room looks better, sewing machine protected from dust.  I’m happier.

I still have an entire drawer of strings.

Hope you found something productive to do with your day!

The Reluctant Poster

That’s me.  Lately I have been reluctant to post anything.  Feeling like I’m not working on anything much, or that there’s not much going on in my life.  My daughter has been here this last week.  It is difficult for her to get a break in her schedule, as she is now doing her internship, but we are glad to see her.  And since we live about an hour from her undergraduate college (we lived 3 hours away, but moved 4 hours from there, and are now an hour in the other direction–weird, huh?), she has been catching up with old friends and professors.  It has been a good visit.  She will be going back next week.

In the meantime I have been going through an especially busy time at work–which started to slowdown mid last week (yay!) and next week I am off to my annual quilt camp.  Funny how going off to that I do a lot of sewing in preparation. As I have looked through projects to pack up and take, I realize that some of them I could do a little more on, or I could try something, so sit down and mess with it.  I also had a bunch of Quilts of Valor that were given to me to quilt.  I have quilted them in preparation so I can pass them on to my friends in SCQOV.  Even though I’m not in South Carolina, I still quilt some quilts for them from time to time.  Not as many as I used to.  The distance does make a difference.

I have been playing with some string piecing up in my sewing room and planning on making a dust cover for my sewing machine.  I’ll work on it some more tomorrow and perhaps post a few pictures.  What are you working on?

De-Stashing: April 2013

I think I have found the downside of monthly stash reports:  I post less often.  However, I do think a good portion of that can be attributed to my life at present.  Work has been a constant “sprint” lately.  And the situation with my mom is about the same.  she has been, for a little over a month now, been recuperating in a nursing home.

I did get some work done this month.  The blue and yellow quilt is a charity quilt.  The right is a quilt of valor–It was Mystery #30 at  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MysteryQuilts4Military/   my Mystery Quilts for Military group.  I named it “Gettysburg”, the pattern making me think of the Civil War.

And even though my “de-stashing” is looking pretty good so far this year, I went shopping this morning and added another 4.5 yards, so I am starting May in the hole.

De-Stashed this Month:         7.00
De-Stashed year to Date:       52.00
Stashed this Month:                 6.50
Stashed Year to Date:               33.25

Net De-Stashed for 2013: 18.75<<Goal for 2013:  Greater than 25 yards De-stashed>>>

For more stash reports, visit Patchwork Times.

 

Bonus: In Full Bloom

The big excitement for me this week is that my husband found my keys!  They were missing for three weeks and I had given them up as lost.  We even had his car rekeyed because we were left with only a single key.  They were behind the entry hall table–they had fallen behind and were sitting on a trim board.

This weekend my flowering cherry trees also went into full bloom.  They look so lovely that the one of my neighbors–who I always seen out working on his yard–commented how jealous he was.  So let’s just preserve that a moment longer…..in a few days the green leaves will overtake the delicate pinkish-white blooms and they will not be half so pretty.  Although they will cast a lovely shade on my lawn.

Also over the weekend, I pulled out the scraps/wastage from a mystery quilt I am authoring.  Now, most of my quilts have some wastage, but this was quite a bit more than others, so I kept all of it back and made a crib quilt with it.  There are 56 windmill blocks in the center–I had to make an extra 4, and I had to make a few extra HST for the split diamond border.  Then I added the inner white border, the red strip in the split diamonds, and the corner blocks.  And most of this was done from cutting scrap pieces from the original quilt cutting.  The finished bonus quilt is about 37 x 43, which makes a nice crib quilt.  The mystery quilt that “caused” it is about 66 x 74.  So two nice quilts out of one set of instructions.

For right now my mom is in a rehab working on her mobility so she can be more comfortable when she returns home.  Although she’s had some rough patches, she is doing better at the moment.  Hope you had some sunshine and quilting at your home, too.