Hobbies Collide

I found a great bargain on a vintage Singer last Friday and we drove about an hour to pick it up. It's a nice looking Singer 404, a brother to my Jake. Its paint looks good and isn't too dirty on the inside although it's terribly dirty on the outside!

Ooo, filthy! Dash said he didn't even want it in the house! This guy is begging for a good scrub & wash and nice long oil treatment! He will be so pretty once he is clean and waxed. He hasn't told me his name yet...

I was all excited and would have started working on him immediately but I had a giant puzzle taking up my kitchen table workspace. I had to have a puzzle mini-marathon and get it done.

Dash and I haven't been able to eat at the table for a couple weeks, lol! Who knew 1500 piece puzzles were so freaking big??? Now, I've finished it and I can get started on the new 404. The puzzle will be going to a friend's house to take up their tablespace.

Thank you for visiting my blog today!

xox

Lambing Season

Now, I don't know anything about real sheep but at my house it must be already lambing season because a lot of them have sure popped up! I turned that top corner so you can see how big it will turn out. It's just under 13 inches square. 

Les Moutons is coming along at a good clip! See the silly one kicking out his back hoof on top of the stack of five? HaHaHaHa! I'm enjoying this stitch immensely. 

I've also started making bowl cozies out of that Fresh Market layer cake. I told you I had plans! Jake powers right through all those layers of cotton like it was piecing.

The bad thing about making these is all the batting fluff does a number on my eyes! Itchy and dry, my eyes are red before I finish even one cozy. I'm not allergic to batting, it's just a debris irritant. Eye drops are my 2nd best friend! I will have to give Jake (my #1 best friend) a good cleaning/oiling during and after making these linty cuties. 

Oh dear, I've been watching floss tube. As if I didn't already follow like, 500 some-odd blogs already, now I'm adding video blogs to my enablers. If you aren't aware of floss tube (or flosstube) go on YouTube and type that keyword into the search box. Be careful. Just saying. I enjoy the concept but it is a lot more time consuming than reading blogs! It does give me something to watch/listen to while stitching. I especially enjoy the tutorial ones - I love learning new stuff. Do you watch floss tube?  Are you a floss tuber? 

Thank you for visiting my blog today!

xox

Let Me Call You Tweet Heart

Yesterday was such a good day! I baked banana bread ~ that means it wasn't too very hot to run the oven for an hour. I also completed a project on my new Singer 404! I knew this little bird wouldn't take long but, wow! I finished it in record time. Well, record time for the Queen of Slow Stitching, anyway!

Once I had the stitching finished, I put iron on interfacing on the back of both pieces. The interfacing will help keep the stuffing from poking through!

I sewed up the seam on my 404 and stuffed the pin pillow with lavender buds and crushed walnut shells. Smells so lovely! I put a rustic blanket stitch in green floss around the edge to soften the blunt look of the two different fabrics.

Oh, how adorable! Some would say, "Too pretty to stick pins in!" but NO! Use it! Love your smalls to pieces, literally. I'd much rather see my work in use, loved, and wearing out than sitting on a shelf, covered in dust. 

Design ~ Tweet Hearts, Exemplar #1

Designer ~ Blackbird Designs

Fabric ~ 32 count Daffycat-dyed  Jobelan

Fiber ~ DMC

Finish ~ Pin Pillow

My 404 sewed very well for me. I am loving this machine. I also really like having the bed level with the cabinet, as nothing hangs over the edge of the machine. I must be off find another project!

Thank you for visiting my blog today!

xox

Hot Hot Hot

We are in a stretch of ridiculously hot weather, 100 + degrees but I am keeping inside in the air conditioning and of course, sewing! Today it's the New Moon and time to share our Totally Useless Stitch A Long ORTs! I don't have many since I spent most of the last month working on restoring the 301 but I sewed a little and have a few threads to share:

There aren't enough ORTs to cover the ink stains in my wooden leaf. Maybe I already told you this bowl sat by the telephone when I was a girl, filled with pens and pencils?

The leaf bowl is sitting atop some little postage stamp blocks I have been practicing with. Why do I need practice? Well...I spent my Piggy Bank Savings on this:

A Singer 404, already fully restored. He arrived on Friday and I wasted no time putting him in my cabinet.

Then I grabbed my box of two patches and started sewing! He runs like a top and sews a really lovely seam. The two patches are what I've been using as leader/enders for two years now.

Have I mentioned how much I love this cabinet? I even love the thousands of teeny scratches caused from a seamstress putting her scissors down over the years. I plan on adding to those!

Dash said he looks just exactly like my other two. What can I say? I adore Palomino colored Singers!

I am used to sewing on a modern machine. Fern always stops with her needle down and her foot controller is completely different. There is no computer controlling the 404! I need practice to learn how to stop this one with his needle in the fabric. Soon, I had a stack of my two patches sewn into 16 patches. All the while I am learning to control that needle!

I sewed the sixteen patches together. Would you call this a 64 patch? Whatever! It came out to 12.5 inches square. Perfect! There is no better way to practice than with a giant stack of two inch squares. The scary thing is I have not made a dent in that box of two patches...

=^..^=

Now it is YOUR turn...we want to see your ORTs! Leave a comment on this post with a link to your July TUSAL post so we can come visit! If I hold a Totally Useless giveaway your comment will earn you an extra entry.

Wondering what a TUSAL is and why all these people are posting pictures of rubbish? Click here to learn more and join the fun!

Thank you for visiting my blog today!

xox 

Singer 301A Restoration

I have been watching Andy Tube avidly since buying my 2 vintage sewing machines. Andy teaches vintage sewing machines. This channel is a wealth of information for beginners like me and the way Andy teaches makes it easy for me to learn. I've been studying along his series on a Singer 404 and since most of the parts are similar I was able to follow and do the same on my Singer 301A.

Here is my machine, ready to restore. It doesn't seem too bad does it? I had spent a few hours cleaning it after I purchased it. Just wait!

I start taking parts off. Mind you, this isn't willy nilly! Everything that comes off is labeled carefully so I don't get mixed up!

My box of parts started filling up fast. As I took things off they got thoroughly washed with a degreaser and rinsed in water (even the bottom cover with the felt) then carefully dried and buffed with a dremel tool and oiled/greased as needed. The painted parts got many coats of various waxes.

See how filthy and rusty this tension unit was?

There was lots of gunky grease, likely put on at the factory during assembly. This stuff sits and absorbs odors and is sticky beyond reason.

Some parts were the very dickens to remove. I HAD to remove this Needle Clamp to be able to remove the Needle Bar and it took forever! I even emailed Andy to make sure it actually came off and I wasn't trying to remove something that was all one piece. I soaked this in WD40, in degreaser, and in rust remover, and I wiggled until my fingers were sore. No movement. I finally took the hairdryer out, got the part hot and let it cool and it came right off! It was pretty rusty! 

Some parts were downright scary to remove! This is the Thread Take Up Lever. All this is what attaches to the Needle Bar and the Needle Bar Crank. THIS MAKES IT SEW AND I TOOK IT OFF!

Lots of grease flung about on the inside. The end of the motor comes up through that empty hole. Seriously, the light and motor were the easiest parts to take off!

Then there were parts like these that gave me quite a scare. First I had trouble removing the lever that attaches to this and panicked, emailed Andy then I figured it out and emailed again saying never mind. So then, I got to fiddling with the little slide block (tiny silver part in the middle) that is still in the machine and it fell off into the body! Oh holy crows! My heart literally stopped! Andy had not mentioned that it came off and I just about came unglued for a few minutes. Then I realised how easy this would be to get it all back together and had quite a laugh.

I also had to tell Andy about how I nearly died taking apart the Feed Regulator... 

I don't think this Handwheel has been off since 1956. So much varnished oil! Remember, I had spent hours cleaning this machine already!

Once everything I could take off was off, the machine got taken outside and sprayed inside and out with a degreaser, scrubbed with a toothbrush, rinsed off with a garden hose and got a blow-dry with a leaf blower! I am not kidding!

It came back inside looking like this. I quickly started oiling and greasing gears and doing basic rust prevention. 

Oh my, it is so clean!

I was astonished how clean it came. Remember all that grease and oil and dirt? Gone. Along with the stink!

Once everything was clean it was quick work to put it back together. Before I knew it it was done! Every part was sparkling clean. And best of all it sewed!

The machine looks incredible and best of all, between the waxes and the yummy oil (Tri-Flow smells of bananas) no longer smells like an old auto workshop. All the workings are oiled and the gears are greased. The finish is protected with the wax and my material should glide across the bed. 

This was the best adventure ever! I had so much fun restoring this machine! This will not be the last machine I will restore. I am planning to do my Rocketeer next and I am constantly searching for any others in my area I could be interested in. If you have read this far you might be as crazy as I am...

Thank you for visiting my blog today!

xox

A Little Upgrading

Sew, my studio has a new addition! I found this lovely Singer sewing cabinet on Craigslist yesterday. It came with an old 1970's plastic Singer inside but my 1960's Rocketeer will fit once I get the Rocketeer restored. I moved my particle board cabinet right on out!

Right now my Juki is sitting atop the cutout insert. When I want to use the vintage machine I can move the Juki and lift the 503A out of it's cave. The 301A takes a different mount as it was meant to be portable.

Look at all the storage space in the drawers! It is shorter than my old cabinet but I don't mind a bit!

Included in with the accessories for the 1970's machine was this Singer accessory box. 

I cleaned it all up and it fits my 503A cams and feet and plates like it was made for them.

I should really stay off Craigslist and eBay! There is a 401A nearby and it seems I am a sucker for beige and cream colored machines...

Thank you for visiting my blog today!

xox

Fun Mail Day!

I was excited for this afternoon's mail as I was expecting packages! I got home to find a huge box marked "perishable" all over every side. "What's this?" I asked Dash. He had no clue. Fun mail isn't supposed to look like that and I was deeply puzzled. Oh, wait...that's my prescription from the specialty pharmacy! Not fun mail at all! My little bottle of pills came in a giant styrofoam box with little chilled coolers inside another giant box. 

Then the actual mail came and I  was a little frightened:

Eeek! Obviously well smashed on top of being two days late. Hmmm. This package went from Arizona to Virginia where it wandered around before being sent back to Oklahoma for delivery. 

Whew, the insides were undamaged! I found this box of 503 accessories on eBay and snapped it up as I have no feet except a zigzag and I was hoping it had some of the cams I needed to complete my set. It did have two I needed but it also had two of the "0" (zero) cams that are rather sought after. That makes 3 zero cams I have! I will have to give these things a good cleaning ala Andy Tube's method as they are kinda stinky. The box will be put in storage along with the manual...pee-yew...I hate that musty odor!

Another little package, this one undamaged, was a bobbin tension meter so I can check things out on my machines. You can find this creature on The Singer Featherweight Shop's site click here.

I've also gathered even more supplies for machine restoration. Odd photo angle as my paint brushes package would not stop shining!

This is a picture for Andy who was telling me about the rare eyelet cam for my buttonholer and as luck would have it one was mixed in with the accessories that came with my 301. It even has the original box! Quite a find and I still grin every time I think of it!

No photos of the Dresden plate, but all my folded corners are on! Progress, slow but there.

Thank you for visiting my blog today!

xox

Stuff & Thangs

Too much life and not enough sewing...I need more free time! Lots of what free time I do have has been spent watching the Andy Tube channel on YouTube. Andy teaches vintage sewing machines. I am learning so much about my machines and have been gathering supplies needed to take one apart and restore it. Andy is doing a series right now on a Singer 404, step by step, take it apart, clean it and put it back together. It is so interesting!

The other day I stopped by Walmart to get a French bread, ham and Swiss cheese to make sandwiches for dinner. Heading to checkout I passed by the fabric area and discovered it packed full of clearance fabric. I picked up an entire bolt of this navy blue print on white, perfect for the backing on the Dresden plate quilt! Best of all the fabric was $1.50 a yard so I got 8.5 yards for $12.75! I am not kidding! 

How is the Dresden plate coming along? Slowly. It would go faster if I actually sewed on it, right? I tried a few of the scrappy corners and I think I like the look so I am working on the rest of those today.

These blocks are so big! They seem to have taken over my studio. Big blocks will probably make for a lightening fast "putting together" when I get to it.

I need to come up with a border idea for this one. Suggestions?

Thank you for visiting my blog today!

xox

Testing Testing ORTs

Thursday was the New Moon and I am late once again for the Totally Useless Stitch A Long! My ORTs are a little sparse this month as I haven't been doing enough crafting! I have been playing with the machinery and learning it instead of creating. I've played some on the 301 and a lot on the 503. The ORTs in my bowl are a few cast off threads and really messed up leader/ender blocks. I do have a nice pile of finished half square triangles! The tiny feed dogs on the vintage machines lets me stick a sewing guide down and gives me precise 1/4 inch seams.

The really messed up blocks were caused by the presser foot pressure being set all the way down on the 301 and it took me a bit to figure out why it didn't want to feed the fabric. It was also frozen up and took me a long time of oiling and waiting and trying, then finally asking Dash to try unsticking it. Dash has strong fingers and got it loosened enough for me to get it thoroughly oiled and working freely! It sewed much better with the lighter touch on the presser foot!

After the 301, I got out the 503 and started playing. Since the 503 has zigzag capabilities I wanted to see what it can do. On the modern machines you push a button to set a different stitch but, on this 503, you open the top and insert a cam that moves the needlebar. I got out all the cams in order and sewed a line of stitches with each. Sometimes it took me a bit to figure out what stitch settings made the best looking stitches! A funny aside: I sewed for a long time that day in my stocking feet and wore a sore spot on my foot from the foot pedal button! 

=^..^=

Now it is YOUR turn...we want to see your ORTs! Leave a comment on this post with a link to your May TUSAL post so we can come visit! If I hold a Totally Useless giveaway your comment will earn you an extra entry.

Wondering what a TUSAL is and why all these people are posting pictures of rubbish? Click here to learn more and join the fun!

Thank you for visiting my blog today!

xox