I am one step closer to getting this to sew again:

I took a gamble on that machine, then another gamble on the canister fitting it. I am still amazed that someone found a canister, even more amazed that it works in this machine. There are a few more pieces I need to pull together and I will need needles for it before I can test it out. I went to Scrap this weekend and bought up a bunch of small wooden spools of thread. Looks like I have plenty that will work.

And I had fun with the handcrank! I bought some scrap fabric and probably paid too much for this batch with feed sack reproduction fabric. Part of it was cut into strips and I just put it aside. I wanted a project for the handcrank and thought of making small nine patch squares. These still need to be trimmed and probably are not the best patches I will ever sew, but I had a lot of fun with it.

I thought about buying parts for the Singer I had, to turn it into a hand crank. (To be honest, I’m pretty sure it was originally a hand crank. It has hinges instead of hinge pins, which usually means it was in a base, not a treadle.) Then I ran across a Singer with a decal set I couldn’t really find. Next thing you know, I’m watching it move cross country via Fed Ex. The seller, jwinktreasures5, from Ebay did an excellent job of packing it and it made it safely here today. I think this will be fun. I plan to make a sling for it, for easy carry. And I can take it into the living room and sew while hanging out with my husband. And I may still get the parts for the other Singer, now that I have a better idea of what I need.

AND, she sent me a goodie box! This is fun stuff too.

The machine needs to be cleaned a bit and the finish is chipped. It seems to run smoothly. I probably won’t get to try sewing with it until the weekend. I need to get back on track and work on the house this weekend too. No more fun piecing quilt patches. We just really need to get packed up and get this place on the market. I am looking forward to moving but not so much towards the getting ready to move which seems to have been going on forever.

I won’t have this one until next week though, so will wait to add pictures. I’m getting a Singer handcrank, 1892. I have this Singer that I’d thought about turning into a handcrank:

Then I discovered that the bag of parts I have does not really seem to go with this machine. I could make some of them work but it will require more parts. I plan to keep this machine and have a treadle base that I could use with a little modification. And then I found a hand crank on Ebay that I fell in love with and that is that. It has an interesting set of decals.

I want to start a quilting project. The problem is that we are still getting this house ready to sell. There are things I can’t find. I had the idea this morning of doing quilted potholders. Appleturnover.tv on You Tube has two tutorials doing these. I thought I could do one on each machine, start to finish, and label which machine I used to make it. It would give me a chance to get a feel for the machines I haven’t used as much. And these are small projects, quick to finish. I’ve been buying scrap fabric from Ebay, and I have some batting that I used on my free motion potholders. I think this could be fun. I discovered the other day that my new cabinet works nicely to cut quilt pieces:

Finally, here’s a picture of old seldom seen, Loretta. It’s just hard to get a good picture of a black dog. She is a good girl but has really slowed down over the last year. She is a rat/mouse killing machine though.

I have been fooling around with this:

This is why picking up a $10 head is a bad idea. I was originally thinking it might be a good parts machine for someone, then got started on trying to get the pieces to make it work. The bobbin cost as much as the head. I bought a shuttle for it, which I’ve managed to misplace. (It was probably a bad idea to tackle a project with my office all torn up for painting.) I ordered a bobbin/shuttle combo which will be here next week, as well as a bobbin winder. Which will bring me to the next question, what will I do with it? I don’t know if the Chinese hand cranks will work on it. I like the crank on it, but I doubt it’s practical. It might fit in my empty treadle base. If it does, I guess I just let the other machine heads fight it out and see which one wins. I have the New Home head, which I need to try out. (It’s another $10 head, that I had to purchase the shuttle and bobbin for. It still needs the front bobbin cover.) I have a Singer 28 that was cleaned up and needs to be put back together. And I could use the Singer 99k in the treadle.

The other issue is whether I paint it. I probably should as there are big chips knocked off it. It still seems very dirty. I am thinking about trying kerosene to clean it up. The vibrator screw won’t go all the way down and that also seems to be very dirty. I also need a presser foot for this. I do have a couple of White rotaries, so figured I could use a foot off one of those. I really should take a look. I guess, if nothing else, someone will have a really good parts machine some day. I do think I will eventually wind up with a hand crank. I really like the Singers with the Victoria decals. I don’t really have a bucket list of machines right now, but I would happily pick up a hand crank or a nice chain stitch machine if one came my way. I like to actually use my machine, even if I don’t do anything but sew practice pieces to look at the stitches. If I finally get to retire, there are a lot of projects I’d like to do. Oh, and the other $10 head I have will likely be even more expensive and take longer to get working. That’s the National Two Spool that is missing the canister.

It’s been a long week, as they pulled the plug on George and he died on the first. Since he was caretaking our other place, there’s a lot of issues to sort out. We have temporarily stopped work on the house and are working on an office trailer that we need to sell. My office has been torn up for three weeks now. I need to do some touch up on the paint and we need to put in floor boards as Quinn missed about half the room. But, I had to move in some treadles as I just couldn’t take it any more.

It just feels better to have them in the office again. I managed to pop a capacitor on the Viking. Was interesting because I was sewing along, heard the pop and saw smoke, but it kept sewing with my foot off the foot controller. I pulled the plug and shut it off. I’ve read that this is not a critical piece as it’s designed to prevent interference from the machine. I am going to pull it and see if that’s true. I think I am going to find someone that wants it. I’ve played with the cams a bit and it’s a good machine, but I just want to use the simpler machines these days. After spending time lifting my full sized, heavy machines, I am starting to wonder if I shouldn’t hang on to the 3/4 sized ones. I am pretty sure that Singer 28 head I have was a hand crank at some point. It has hinges instead of those heavier pins to connect to the treadle base. That White VS is another candidate for a hand crank. I could put my 99k in that spare treadle base I have. Just not sure what to keep yet. I have my core four (Singer vs, 127, Free and Davis) and a couple of heads to keep. I do want to keep the Necchi and keep working on it. Am not sure which other machines to keep. I am thinking about keeping the Singer 237 as an electric. Mostly, I really want to spend some time and cut out quilt blocks so I have something to sew. I managed to find my cutting board and ruler, so I am ready to cut.

And I picked up these:

These are Kai 10″ Professional shears. I have been using Fiskers and thought I should get a good pair of scissors to replace them. The reviews on these were great. I haven’t used them yet, but will write a full review when I do.

And, just to add some sort of animal picture, this is Gary. He loves being my office dog. The only problem is that he gets possessive of the room and has growled at Lon for coming in. So I have to trade off, so that he knows he doesn’t own this room. He is a sweet dog and is getting better about sharing.