Busy Fortnight

It's been 2+ weeks since my last post, a quarter of which was stolen away from me by flu--the old-fashioned kind that requires a clear path to the toilet at all times, and a bucket in hand! It seemed to be a 72-hour bug and I'm back to my old self now.

Winding Ways went from a gleam to a finish in these past 16 days! Before being felled, I had added borders (finding the perfect fabric in the CF!Q legacy stash, as I'd hoped), made a back from the blue dot fabric that didn't work in the front (including a couple more FQs from the CF!Q stash), sandwiched the lot and outline-quilted all the inner blocks. Contrary to all teachings and advice from time immemorial, I made the borders to the size the blocks should measure, not what reality might dictate. As a result, the sandwiching involved quite a bit of careful pulling and close pinning so nothing shifted.

Jem-makin' me happy!

I started working again on some frankenbatts yesterday morning (weird dreams about them throughout the night left me little choice), then with 45 minutes to go before having to leave for my afternoon Mom visit, I thought I'd do a little defluffing and some oiling on my Janome Jem's moving parts.

Twenty-five minutes later I had this. . .

 . . . along with the realization that I've owned and used this Jem the longest of all the machines in my stable (nearly 30 years), it's been an absolute work horse the entire time, and I'd never in all those years seen this machine naked.

Singer 301

A new month, a "new" machine!

As I finished up the Rocketeer's cleaning/oiling in preparation for putting them back on their shelf, I pulled out the 301 that's been waiting patiently on the floor in one of the bedroom closets.

Craigslist prep

On this my day off, I decided to check out the problems I had noticed and noted on the previous vintage machines: January's Singer 237 Fashion Mate (the tension got wonky toward the end of the bobbin),  February's Singer 329K StyleMate (the tension knob drifts to zero as she sews), and May's Brother Atlas (no problems, but the tension assembly was the only thing I hadn't taken apart to clean). When I was satisfied I'd done all I could do to fix any problems, I'd start listing them on Craigslist.

I started with the 237, couldn't quite get the tension assembly off, but loosened it all the way and did a good cleaning between the discs. Then I cleaned her up, sewed a bit (for photographic proof of her tension and stitches), took copious pictures, and posted her on Craigslist:

July start

I got the July banner on my mother's walker yesterday.

The "S MMER" letters were embroidered--I just didn't feel like paper piecing them. The U watermelon slice was paper pieced, using a Sharpie to create the seeds.

Racked

In my mighty push to finish the blue, red, and white quilt (really now, why do we always go with 'red white and blue' as if no other order conveys the same colors?) I put so much strain and stress on my fingers and wrists that I haven't wanted to do much of anything since Saturday.

Last month I had told the leader of the Community First! Village Quilters that I had a vet-suitable quilt in the making (she needed 15 of them), and even showed the group my pin-basted sandwich. I wanted to have it ready to hand over this past weekend at the monthly meeting, but to accomplish that I ended up sewing down the binding for 12 solid hours, until 3:30 Saturday morning! (The longer it went on, the slower I got.) I was never so glad to put the final stitch in something and throw it immediately into the wash!

Inevitable, and flying geese

I've been expecting this. I just didn't think it would take nearly 3 weeks of constant sewing before it happened!

Pink Atlas: a closer look

I did a gentle surface clean last night, and took a vacuum to the case this morning and got rid of all the lint, dust, and dirt that had accumulated in the case's nooks and crannies.

Then I removed the needle plate, under which I found where the bulk of the lint had been collecting. That's what I expect to see in old machines!

Back in business

April finished with a flurry of activity. First up: get Rosaleen up and running again. The belt I ordered looked suspicious in the package . . .

. . . but it was labelled for her model . . .

. . . so I  suspended disbelief and told myself that it was probably easier for product storage if the belts are forced into rectangular shapes by the packaging.

Swatches

So, it turns out fabric-based constructs aren't the only ones that work with swatches.

My son came by the other day and brought his swatches of 3D filaments so I could choose the color for an in-line on/off switch.

In truth, I'd selected a transparent green first, but when he grimaced and said it was fragile and hard to work with, I selected the "Army Green" color instead (seen propped below the stitch regulator on the Singer). As he observed, there are several greens to work with on this machine, so exact matches aren't that critical.

The LQS called the other day to let me know her belt and LED light were in, so I may be spending the rest of the month sewing on her. My mother's May banner is yet to be constructed. Now that taxes are done and mailed in, this sounds like a wonderful way to finish the month of April!

185J

I finished my chorus top on Monday, then put away the Janome Jem I sewed it on (it's got a nice variety of zig-zag stitches which come in handy with knits). There was a sad, empty spot on my table which needed to be filled, so I pulled down a machine I knew worked (I watched "Rosaleen" in action before I purchased her in May 2017).

I'm jumping the April 'gun' a bit, but I didn't want to waste any time trouble-shooting. I wanted to get right to sewing again!

February's Machine's Tweaks

I love sewing on the 329K StyleMate, but learned quickly the only way to turn it off was to unplug it from the outlet. In my case, that meant groping around under the table for the power strip I had attached under the table's surface, often needing to get on my knees to accomplish the task. Getting on wasn't difficult--getting off my knees can be a strain.

First Repair

The bobbin I popped into the 237 had only a few inches of thread wound on it, so the first order of business yesterday was to wind a new bobbin. I thought I'd try a different style bobbin in a continuation of the 'throw things at it and see what works' method of getting to know this machine.

The bobbin wouldn't wind, however, and after considering that perhaps it didn't fit on the winder properly, I took a look at the winding post while the motor was running and realized it wasn't turning, period. The style of bobbin had nothing to do with it. The Googles gave up a couple of videos about repairing this part, so when I took off the top it came as no surprise to me...

Owners of Singer Fashion Mates were apparently encouraged and expected to remove this regularly for oiling and general maintenance--so different from today's machines!

...that the rubber tire/wheel/O-ring was missing from the bottom of the winding mechanism.

Hiccup

I was contentedly quilting along this morning, the time of day when I get the bulk of any quilting done, when suddenly my Brother/Nouvelle 1500 was useless. The needle wouldn't go all the way down and was blocked by a piece of metal!

I'd done nothing different from one minute to the next, except that one of the pin heads of the heavily pin-basted quilt sandwich

managed to hit the thread cutter button on the face of the machine as I was shoving the quilt through the 8" throat.

Being Reminded

Nann's been busy catching up with blogs, and the comments she added to my last three postings reminded me that I haven't written anything for 2 months. What could possibly have distracted me (she wonders, facetiously)?

The week after I wrote my previous post, I was in Oregon again to move my mother here to Texas with me. The past two months have been a flurry of furnishing and getting her situated in her new Memory Care "apartment" (the facility is 2 miles from me), getting her Medicare insurance squared away, appointments with new doctors, three ER visits, two hospital admissions/discharges, and trying to get her to sleep at night! It's been intense, and I learned pretty quickly that I'd need to take mornings for myself and devote the 1-5 pm time slot to visiting and amusing her.

During her recent hospital stays I was reminded daily that the elastic on my mask was absolutely shot and needed replacing.

I Would Walk 500 Miles and I Would Walk 500 More...

About a month ago, a thin silver piece landed on the fabric I was sewing. My first thought was that the needle had broken, but without the usual accompanying sound and fury. But no, a turn of the handwheel showed a perfectly intact needle.

That little piece was set aside (to determine later if it was metal or plastic) and I hoped that it wouldn't prove to be crucial to the operation of my hard-working Brother/Nouvelle 1500.

Then a couple of weeks later, the piece showed up on my work again! Had another section of the machine broken loose? Had I inadvertently swept up the first piece while twisting and turning the Behemoth on the sewing table? The piece was set aside, again, and sewing continued.

Finally, last week, a third piece landed at my fingertips while applying the binding on the Behemoth and all things became clear:

The walking foot had been slowly falling apart over the weeks and finally gave up the ghost. It put in years and miles of faithful duty. Nevertheless, I was glad to have a spare on hand so I could replace it immediately and get on with my project!

Seriously: Knock it off

I didn't know why I was letting this machine get to me!

To look at me, you'd think nothing would faze me. I stand nearly 6' tall, and my RPF** is intimidating according to my last boss. (He never used the term RBF, but I can.) I ooze confidence!

But that deep-throat Viking of mine, once again, had me quaking in my proverbial boots for the last several (8!!) months. As I was finishing the quilting on my bowtie coffee/work/wine/repeat quilt (back in November), the motor started in with a discouraging, high-pitched squeal.

Dated 1 Nov 2017. Got the Press 'N' Seal template on the inner borders, ready to finally finish this and get it on the bed.

She's too young to be having these types of problems! Nothing I did--clean, oil, change bobbins, change speeds, put away extra bobbins that might be producing sympathetic vibrations/harmonics (I hold them on one of the spool posts)--changed the fact that my machine was being a bitch. So as soon as I finished the last stitch, I turned her off and set about ignoring her problem as hard as I could. As one does.