Another drought between posts

Posted by terip on November 5, 2018 No comment

It’s not intentional, but we have been making a push to finish up the house. I am so tired of dealing with this. I feel like I never have any time off. I tell myself that it has to be done, which would be easy enough to deal with, if the end was really in sight. So we’ll see. Meanwhile, I don’t sew, play my dulcimer or spin. I have been knitting a little and I do have a small amount of Christmas knitting ahead. That would be because knitting baby sweaters does not seem work.

I picked up a nice G4 Powerbook. I know that PPC Macs are obsolete, but this was one from the last of the Power PPCs. I maxed out the RAM and plan to put in a solid state drive to increase performance. It’s a little slow but not bad.

Will try and update again soon.

This month went by fast!

Posted by terip on August 29, 2018 1 comment

I really didn’t mean to be this long between posts. I managed to take a week’s vacation during the week we had mid 90s temperatures. And we had smoke from some wildfires up north, to make it even more unpleasant. I really didn’t get anything done. I do have two skirts put together that I need to hem. I gave away some machines during the Sew Purty workshop and am still happy they are gone. So far, I’ve managed to avoid looking at sewing machines. I am trying to convince my stepson’s girlfriend to take up sewing as a hobby. I think she might enjoy it, but I don’t really have the right machine for her. The Singer 237 would be great but I just can’t part with it. I’ll see what turns up.

We went to the Toledo Boat show. Got there late and I didn’t even make it over to where the boats were. It was smoky there as well. We just don’t seem to have a lot of interest in going anywhere these days. We are still trying to get some work done on the house and there are a few small things that have been finished up. It just never ends.

I am writing a column for Low End Macs about Palms. First column is  here. I have a second one almost ready to go. And I started a funky little website for my Palms at Pocket-retro.org. I didn’t want to bore folks here with my Palm chats. It was sort of interesting picking it back up, because my Palm was like a time capsule from 2008. I’ve brought it up to date, picked up maybe five more devices, but keep going back to the Zire I used to use. There seems to be a certain amount of nostalgia for them. To be honest, it’s a relief to be disconnected from the internet for awhile.

And, in the more things I am collecting category, I have another dulcimer! This one was $40, which is the main reason I decided to check it out. It turns out to be a kit from Dulcimer Shoppe, home of the McSpadden dulcimers (which are considered THE dulcimer to have). It’s a high end walnut plywood and was built in 1976. It’s really a nice instrument, although I don’t think it’s as nice as my Ron Gibson.

I am signed up for a workshop mid September with Stephen Seifert in Portland. He’s considered one of the best dulcimer players around and known as an excellent teacher. He does many of the videos for the online school I subscribe to, Dulcimer School.  So this will be a fun thing for me and something completely different. I just want to play well enough to amuse myself and Lon.

The weather is supposed to stay on the cool side and I just might take a little time to work on one of the sewing machines I haven’t messed with yet. I would like to see if the National Two Spool works. And I would like to spend a little time sewing with the Davis Vertical Feed. And then, the Necchi needs attention. I am taking Tuesday off next week, so maybe I will accomplish some of this during the long weekend.

Bag repair

Posted by terip on August 3, 2018 No comment

I’m trying to sort out doing a repair on my very nice bag. The strap that is attached to the bag has torn. I’m considering adding a leather patch on the inside of the bag and sewing it back together. I also think vertical stitching, rather than horizontal, would make this stronger. I’m on vacation next week, so I guess I will find out which machine can handle leather.

 

Sew Purty Workshop

Posted by terip on August 2, 2018 No comment

I’ll start with this, for anyone needing a sewing machine fix. I went to the Sew Purty workshop in Portland. Ray Elkins is a fun guy and I learned a lot. I took my White, aka the Hillbilly Handcrank, as it was the dirtiest machine I own. To prove that, here’s the starting pictures of the inside, showing the presser and needle bar.

 

When I had all these pieces cleaned, I had problems putting it back together. It was so clean that it didn’t resemble these pictures! Finally managed to get it all back together. I haven’t tried sewing with it yet, but will give it a try next week. Here’s the finished machine:

More pictures from the workshop:

I recommend the workshop. I wish it had been three days, as I would have liked a slower pace. If you are very experienced, you might not learn a lot. But if you’ve messed around with machines a bit, I think you’ll pick up some useful tips. I learned that my documentation of taking things apart could use some work! I got to see how to time a Singer (the White didn’t need to be timed). I won’t get a chance to really put this to work, due to moving, but I can at least clean off some of the surface grime. It’s a good thing, when you can learn how to keep these machines sewing for another hundred years.

 

Lots of new things

Posted by terip on July 6, 2018 No comment

No new sewing machines though. First there is this:

Abraham Alexander Wells was born on July 3rd, 8 pounds and three ounces. Mom Abigail is doing fine, although a little punchy from lack of sleep when we saw her on the 4th. Picture of the proud daddy and granddaddy:

I was able to go to Black Sheep on Saturday. I don’t have a lot of stamina for things like this, so I didn’t make it out to see the animals. I do like the venue in Albany a lot better. I just hope they can keep this going. I picked up a Jenkins Aegean in Ambrosia Maple, a braid of targhee in the colorway Durango from Greenwood fibers, and a bit over two pounds of gotland fleece. It’s one of the things I find most frustrating, because I do enjoy fiber festivals. I just get so winded trying to walk around that it’s hard. I was looking for a vendor that has been attending for years, with these beautiful Icelandic pelts for sale. I could finally afford one, but they weren’t there. So I guess I’ll have to keep looking. Picture of the new spindle:

I bought an Aegean previously but I couldn’t get around the idea that it was heavier than the Egret. I do like this one. It’s a nice weight. I wasn’t sure if I’d like the Targhee. Last time I bought some, I had real problems finding the right spindle. It was just too bouncy and the red dye bleed out when you washed it. I never have that problem with Greenwood fibers. I have another braid I’d bought the week before, Falklands in persimmon, which I have been spinning on my Lark. I have decided that I am on Team Flats when it comes to Jenkins spindles. I had planned to pick up a Swan but I’ve found that I prefer the flat spindles, with the exceptions of my Delights.I haven’t been spinning a lot lately, so it’s nice to get back in the groove. I’ll wash up the fleece this weekend as we have some warm weather for a change.

Still trying to finish up the house. Want to get this on the market in August. We don’t want to be moving cross country during cold weather. Still waiting to see if we have our other place sold. We did have one weird thing happen. There was a place we were considering. It was an older house, built in the late 30s and vacant on acreage. I like the folks that are selling the place and thought we could make the house for for us. Well, the ad turned up with all the pictures of the house removed, so we contacted them. Turned out there was a nasty storm that came through. The lightning hit the tranformer box in the house and it caught fire. It was a total loss, although the foundation and outbuildings are still there. Really a shame. I see so many old houses that are modernized and I just don’t like it. I’d prefer to do the house to my own tastes. So we’ll keep looking.

Time for a cute cat picture:

Back in the day…..

Posted by terip on June 12, 2018 No comment

This used to be my go-to toy. It’s my Palm Zire 71, purchased new. It has the neatest camera ever. You slide the front up and the camera lens is exposed. It took pictures just the right size for webpages and you could be pretty sneaky about taking a picture. I have a 2gb SD card that I backed up all my programs on, and saved some free books and an album of music. I had a prepaid phone at the time, one of the green screen kinds, so I didn’t have anything that was always connected to the internet.

My Palm was like a time capsule of 2008. I had it with me when Jeffrey went into the ICU. I did not have any way to charge it. My co-worker was supposed to bring the charging cradle and never did. It stayed dead until I was finally able to get back to work after Jeffrey died. It left me distrusting digital solutions and I made sure that I always had a paper backup of important phone numbers somewhere. I just put it away. And I moved on to smart phones. But I really don’t enjoy them very much. I do use them a lot for the internet. I picked up an iPhone SE as I don’t really care for the large screen phones. I’ve noticed that they’ve re-written iOS for the larger phones now and it’s getting harder to type accurately. I’d go with something else, but I’ve never cared for Android. I’ve got two Kindles and an Android tablet. I just am not impressed.

I have a couple of Tungstens I picked up second hand, an E and a C. They both work. They don’t have cameras. The C can connect to wifi but can only use WEP encryption. And it has a keyboard. I like Graffiti a lot and I’m fast. I have a program called Teal Script that will let you use old style Graffiti letters and you can train it to recognize exactly how you write. I haven’t really done anything with the Tungstens, but have charged up one of them sometimes. I didn’t have a good charger for the Zire or the E. I got the wild idea to get charging cables last week, just for fun. I got the Zire working, but needed to get the backup program off the card to reinstall everything.

And that lead to great fun. I have a Thinkpad that runs Linux. I’ve used Palms on Linux before, but couldn’t get the conduit to work. I have an HP running Windows 7. I installed the Palm Desktop, but the conduit was 32 bit. There is a 64 bit driver another company wrote, but I needed to track it down. So..I pulled out my iBook G4, with OS 10.4 installed. I installed Palm Desktop. And I was able to sync and get the backup program installed. It’s not pretty because the conduit crashes regularly. But it worked. And when it restored from backup, it was all there. My carefully worked out system of memos in Pedit and Memoleaf. My copy of Bejeweled still works (and I keep playing it just to be sure!) I have used a LOT of Palm software and I have registrations for the programs I used most. I reinstalled a couple of them. I especially wanted to use Teal Auto again. We want to track mileage on the truck. (I can do this in Quik Budget too, but Teal Auto has nicer reports.) I found a copy of Carla Emery’s Checklist for Homesteaders, which doesn’t seem to be online any more. (I haven’t checked archive.org for it.) It has been an interesting experience.

I’m in the process of archiving and purging a lot of the old stuff and adding new addresses and memos. I am carrying my iPhone and Palm. I’ve taken a few pictures with the Palm but they aren’t as high resolution as the iPhone. I transferred a few new pictures over to the Palm and they look great. I even picked up a second hand Zire as a backup. I think I’m going to keep using this. So here are a few thoughts: I like writing much better than using my fingers. I can be more precise and I think faster when I’m writing than when I am tapping things out on the iPhone. I’m a fast typist, but you don’t really type on a smart phone. Steve Jobs was wrong. Styluses work much better. The Palm software community was amazing and some of the programs still blow me away. I wish Pedit was on another platform. It is such a great text editor. One of the lessons I learned was to use text files. It’s a format that doesn’t change and can be read on any platform. Pedit even has a scripting language. I’ve forgotten most of what I learned, but still have a few scripts I can mess around with when I have more time.

I’m actually enjoying my time off the internet. If I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t sleep, I can play a quick game of Bejeweled now. And, I set an alarm on my Palm for my doctor’s appointment. I’d forgotten that my alarm tone is the Canteena music from the original Star Wars. I’m still carrying some paper with me and I am still using my iPhone. It’s just nice to have obsolete technology to mess around with for a change. And I like using my old iBook. I should upgrade it to OS 10.5 one of these days. The problem is that old technology that uses the internet is the tech that is obsolete first. When you can’t find a browser to use, it’s dead.

Lon’s birthday today! I hope he has many more.

One more cat post

Posted by terip on May 25, 2018 No comment


 

The old guy is gone. We took him to the vets last night to be put down. This is a good vet. We asked him to check Jack out, just to be sure, and the vet agreed it was time. He could no longer hold his head up by himself and was having some problems breathing. He went quickly and peacefully. I will never forget the first time I saw him. It was at a natural pet food store. One of the clerks was carrying him around in her pocket. Someone had taken a litter of kittens, put them in a cat carrier and left them in the parking lot of an apartment. She’d found homes for the other kittens and needed one for Jack. I think he may have been four weeks old as he always acted as though I was his mom. He was intelligent and always took care of any of the new kittens. He was outside just once in his life, when we were in the trailer in Stabler. Jeffrey happened to go out and find him in front of the trailer, looking very scared and surrounded by goats and chickens. That was enough adventure for him.

I’ve had a lot of cats, some with great personalities. None of them were like Jack. Lon really helped me deal with this and feels bad about losing him too. I wish there was something else we could have done. Rest easy, binkie cat.

 

Not a sewing post

Posted by terip on May 8, 2018 No comment

I still haven’t had a chance to try sewing with the new machine. And we are probably off to visit the stepson this weekend, so likely won’t get a chance this weekend either. I am dealing with this:

There are other pictures of Jack on this blog. We got him back when we bought the place on Fern Prairie. He must be 15 or so now. He is the best cat I’ve ever had, smart and affectionate. About a month ago, his back legs started getting weak. I made an appointment to get him to the vets, but the truck broke down that day. Was almost two weeks before we got him in. The vet thought it might be bone spurs and gave me some prednisone for him. He was doing okay then, not walking well, but could drag himself back on the bed. And he had enough bladder control that I could take him over to the cat box to do his business. He’d even wake me up at night for that.

He has unfortunately gotten worse. He has feeling in his legs, so he’s not paralyzed but he can’t walk and has problems holding himself upright. And he is incontinent. I’ve managed to make it so that he can still be up on the bed at night, but I am doing a lot of laundry for the towels to keep every thing dry. I suspect it is just a matter of time. So, not a lot of sewing going on. It can wait for a bit. My vet has been on vacation this week, so I’ll talk to him next week and see what he thinks.

All the other cats that came with me, when I moved here, are buried in the yard somewhere. Jeter, Chuck and Pete have been gone for awhile. I tell myself it would be easier on Jack if he didn’t have to make that move. If he was healthy, there’d be no question about it. But he’s old and starting to fail. I may have to leave him behind, with his old buddies. It will be hard.

Sewing attempted!

Posted by terip on April 17, 2018 1 comment

It’s a baby blanket I made, following Janet Szabo’s instructions. And I didn’t have a problem with the instructions. I had a problem getting the pieces cut square, which affected everything else. And the minky is a knit, which meant that I had to use an electric machine (I used the Viking). It wasn’t as  bad as I originally thought, but one edge in particular looked bad. I was ready to cut it up and resew the whole thing. Then I decided to try sewing a few lines around the edges. It looks better. I will try this next time with two pieces of flannel and make it a bit smaller. It’s cute material and certainly ready to handle baby puke and pee.

 

No new machines this week, which is a good thing. I still haven’t tried to sew with the new machine. We are supposed to do the yard sale this week, so I’ve been trying to see if I can come up with anything else to add to it. I just get burned out so easily. The truck died on us yesterday, so I had to reschedule my doctor’s appointment and an appointment at the vet’s for Jack. Jack’s back legs are weak and this started about a week ago. He’s an old cat and still managing to get around, but I hate to see him struggle. Will have to reschedule everything when we get the truck sorted out.

I ordered some beans, to be planted at the new place. I really am excited about the idea of being able to grow hot weather crops. I had no idea how tired I was of dealing with this climate, until I started thinking about growing  black eyed peas and watermelons. These are from Sustainable Mountain Agriculture Center. I gave Quinn most of the seeds I’d bought for a planned move to the coast. I guess I’m not out that much if I never get a chance to plant these. I always buy seeds, but really can’t grow anything here. There’s the maple in the front yard and there are big evergreens blocking sun in the back yard. I hope this is our last summer here.

Cute doggie picture before I go. This is Gary.

New treadle!

Posted by terip on April 5, 2018 1 comment

I’ve lost track of which number this one is. I showed it to my husband, on Facebook marketplace. There is a button you can click that says “I’m interested” and it sends a message to the seller. He clicked on it when he was looking at it. I didn’t find out, until the seller asked if I’d like to see it. We bought it of course.

 

There’s no information on the machine. From what I can tell, this is a Durkopp, which later became Adler. It seems to thread the same way as older German transverse shuttle machines. It’s actually still threaded,so I just need to see if it will sew. I put a new belt on it. The drawer was jammed shut. The lock was actually stuck in the locked position. I had to take the drawer off to get into it. I have attachments and two more bobbins! It did have the shuttle too. All for the low price of $50. If we don’t move soon, I will have too many treadles to get out of here 🙂

Not a sewing machine

Posted by terip on March 28, 2018 No comment

We are finally going to have a garage sale this weekend. We’ve put it off a couple of times. The garage has been cleaned out, and we have a tarp cover out front, in case it rains. I think I will put a couple of my electric machines up for sale (the Viking and the Singer 401). If they sell, fine. If not, I’ll figure out if I want to take them with me.

I have a new hobby! I was going to wait on this, but just got swept along with the idea. I bought a dulcimer! This is a very basic one, a Dulcimer Factory from the late 90s. It sounds okay but has a high action so is a challenge to play. I put a much better instrument on layaway today and hope to have it before my birthday next month. Here’s the one I have now:

I play around with it in the evenings. I am hoping to be able to play well enough to maybe join in with a group of pickers some day. Once upon a time, I built a kit dulcimer but never did much with it. I do like the idea of being able to pick out some simple tunes.

No new sewing adventures to report. I do need to sew a new petticoat and skirt soon. Flannel petticoats are great most of the year here, but I’d like something lighter for when it warms up. I have the material, just need to cut it out.

Another hurdle

Posted by terip on March 16, 2018 No comment

We had a walk through with a real estate agent today. Just trying to get an idea of what else needs to be considered. I am going to try my hand at painting again this weekend. I want to finish up the main bedroom. We still have about half the inside of the house to paint. Yard sale was pushed back another week.

Didn’t feel well mid week. I think it was some nausea and back spasms at the same time. I didn’t know if I was over it, so felt the need to take a full day off. I do feel much better and I got a small amount of sewing done. I do enjoy sewing on my hand crank. I need to spend some quality time with the Davis though.

 

I’m waiting for a hand crank to show up for the other 28. I ordered it from Canada so will likely be here next week.

Another quick update

Posted by terip on March 13, 2018 No comment

Still haven’t tried the Two Spool in that base. I can’t find the wood screws for the hinge pins, so I’ll have to buy new screws. I do want to try it out and it would be so nice if it fits that base.

I found a home for the 99k! I will be taking it across country, but it will be great to get it to someone that will use it. It’s a nice machine. I fired up my other electrics this weekend. I’m going to do a baby blanket using Janet Szabo’s instructions. I’m using minky and flannel, which means I have to use a zig zag. I removed the bad capacitor from the Viking and it works again. I’ve decided that I am going to sell that one. It’s a good machine, but it’s likely other pieces may start to fail. And I’m also selling the 401, which I just don’t care for. I’ll be left with the Necchi Supernova and the Singer 237. I’m planning to take the Necchi to the shop for an overhaul. I’m not happy with the stitch quality and I still can’t get the cam stack to turn correctly. I could work on it, but that would take away what little time I have for fun projects. Right now, I’d rather have some time to sew. The Singer 237 still stitches perfectly.

I am going to turn that Singer 28 head back into a hand crank. An original Singer hand crank turned up on Ebay, so I bought it. I took the machine outside the other day and it is really grimy. I need to clean it up before I start putting things together. I will need parts for it, but will pick those up as I find them. The other big expense will be a case for it. Once it’s together, I can decide if I want to keep it. I think it would be nice to have two hand cranks. So, I have been trying to make some decisions about what machines go with me.

We are about to paint the main bedroom. We had help cleaning up the area around Lon’s desk, which has been really cluttered. The house looks so much better. I can’t wait until we start to move out some of the bins we’ve packed up. We still have some painting to do in the living room and kitchen/dining room area. Then we’ll have the inside and outside of the house completed. Still pulling together a garage sale. This is all very stressful, but it’s amazing to think that the end might be in sight.

Quick update

Posted by terip on March 6, 2018 No comment

I still haven’t tried to sew with the Two Spool. It looks like it will fit in the base of that Minnesota K I bought. The hinge pins match up and fit in the Two Spool. I am still looking for the screws to the hinge pins, so can’t try it out yet. That base will need drawers at some point, but I think it will be a good match for the machine.

I am thinking about going to the PNW TOGA in Auburn in June. I really need to thin the herd a bit, especially if we do move cross country. I just picked up a Singer hand crank for the little 28, so I guess I’m keeping it. I’d like to get it all put back together. It’s actually my oldest machine. I have this mental inventory of the machines I really want to keep and I would like to rehome a few electric machines. I think I will be using those less in the future.

Mostly I am bummed out as we had folks over this weekend working on the house. Our friend did a great job in the living room and painted about half of it. And he cleaned the dirt and grime off things as he went. We have to match two more colors of paint, so we can finish the front part of the house. There’s talk of a garage sale this weekend, but I don’t know if that’s going to happen. I just get drained when I’m around other people all day. I just don’t feel like I had any time off. Oh, and I replaced the keyboard in my ThinkPad and worked on the Two Spool. Lon was impressed that I could span those technologies. I love these ThinkPads. They are so easy to work on and I am used to the little pointer mid keyboard. It’s much faster than the trackpad, which I disabled. I picked up an amazing electronics tool kit from Amazon, that should have all the tools I need if I decide to start taking cell phones apart.

And, I don’t have a copy of the pictures, but this marks the first day that Jake and Gary have played together without any issues! It was wonderful to see.

And for a different machine….

Posted by terip on February 26, 2018 1 comment

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.

For a change of pace

Posted by terip on February 22, 2018 1 comment

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.

Another machine

Posted by terip on February 16, 2018 No comment

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.

My office

Posted by terip on February 14, 2018 No comment

The room isn’t done yet so I tried to move in items that can be moved out of the way when we do the finish work. Right now, I can fit four treadles and one electric in the cabinet into the room. It feels much better.

I have been working on the heads without bases, trying to figure out what I want to keep. I have a Singer 28, with a bag of parts. I started putting it back together and found out that the parts aren’t correct. They may be for a 128 as they look like the right parts but the faceplate is too big and the feed dog plate won’t fit over the current feed dogs.I think I could get some of the parts to work. I’ve thought about turning this into a hand crank, but I am also starting to think that I’d rather just buy a working hand crank and sort out what to do with this head later. I worked on the Hillbilly Handcrank a bit more. I took off the face plate and it’s just filthy under there. So this needs a major cleaning before I do any more work on it. I think I may put this into the barn treadle. That base needs to be rebuilt. I should be able to redo the top so that this treadle will work in it. I have two White rotary heads that fit, but I’m just not fond of them. I would much rather have this machine working. Then I checked on the New Home. I picked up a shuttle and bobbin for it. It still needs a front cover to the shuttle, but I should be able to test it this weekend. It seems to be a nice machine. I am not sure if I want to keep this one. I have a Singer base that could be modified for this, but am not sure that’s the best use for it.

And that left me with the Minnesota K. I have the base for this, missing drawers and in need of a cleanup. I put the parts back on the machine. I understand taking a machine apart for cleaning but it is so easy to lose parts when you do that. The head still needs cleaning but it’s all there. I wanted this for the base, but am now thinking about getting rid of it. We will be moving and I am trying to cut down on what we take. I’m also still undecided about the Wheeler and Wilson. It’s a good machine and sews just fine. I just don’t have a fondness for it like I do the four machines in my office (five if you count the Singer 237 in the base). I also have a Singer 66 head that I want to use in a treadle and a Singer 99k that I should rehome. I want to have room in case I find a machine I truly want, but I also want these to go to someone that wants to use them.

I still haven’t had time to cut anything out. I did sew a couple of triangles on the Free, just to sew with it. I also have plans to do a little sewing on the Davis. I haven’t used it much, just enough to get a new needle seated right and to make sure that I am threading it correctly. I have plans to do the two Appleturnover.tv tutorials and make those potholders. I want to use the Davis for quilting and binding, but it would be fun to try piecing with it. It is such a pretty machine.

We have the office trailer at the river up for sale. I think we will find a buyer. We need the funds to finish clean up at the river and to finish this house. They plan to have a wake for George at the river next weekend. We have volunteers willing to do some cleanup for that, so maybe we can make some progress there. There’s just so much to do.

Hillbilly handcrank

Posted by terip on February 9, 2018 No comment

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.

Long week

Posted by terip on February 5, 2018 No comment

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.