Featherweight Memories

I love getting packages in the mail -- especially when the contents are quilt related!

Fillius Major (my oldest son) sent me a box of shirts he was weeding out of his wardrobe. He and his family are moving from Texas to Ohio for a new job. But in the midst of packing, preparing his house for sale, and getting ready to fly with five children, a wife, and two cats, he thought of his Aged Parent and her Make-a-Quilt-From-Seven Shirts project.

Fillius Major has always been a good quilter's son. When he was still a teen, he helped me find a Singer Featherweight. The whole family was in the car at the time, my husband at the wheel. I was slumped in the front seat, and though I can't remember the circumstances, I do recall that I was in a black mood.

"Uh, Mom . . ." Fillius M.'s voice broke through my emotional fog. "Do you still want one of those little black sewing machines?"

"Why?"

"That yard sale we just passed -- they had one." Yard sale? I'd been so sunk in gloom I hadn't even noticed it!

Without a word, my Excellent Husband executed a masterful U-turn, and we were back at the yard sale while I was still trying to collect my wits. And there it was: a Singer 221, a.k.a. The Perfect Portable. It had no carrying case or attachments, and the bobbin case was missing. But the foot pedal was still attached. The machine appeared to have been much used, but not abused.

Hesitantly, I approached the woman who appeared to be in charge of the sale. She looked like a burnt-out refugee from a hippie commune and spoke in a vague, disjointed manner. The Featherweight, she said, had belonged to an elderly relative. It was obvious that her descendant didn't know much about sewing machines. When I pointed out that the bobbin case was missing, she helpfully went indoors and brought out another one from a different brand of machine. Since she seemed determined to shove it in somehow, despite her lack of hand-eye coordination, I waved her away and offered to buy the machine "as is," hoping that she wouldn't ask more than I could afford.

She was firm about the price: $25.00.

I paid it gladly, even though I could not be sure that the little guy would even work when it was plugged in. Then I hustled my new baby into the car before she could change her mind.

My spirits were high as my husband deftly wove his way back into the late afternoon traffic. Thanks to the Internet, I was able to replace the missing bobbin case (though it cost me more than the machine itself). And the local quilt store was able to direct me to a good sewing machine tech who specialized in old Singers. Eventually, I even bought a stitch plate with seam markings to replace the unmarked original.

In a way, I guess that Fillius Major was my Featherweight's godparent. Perhaps, in his honor, I should stitch the Seven-Shirts-Quilt on the Featherweight.

Dang! Spiritual Battles in the Sewing Room

Okay, so I was sewing on the Bricks & Stepping Stones quilt, connecting the completed rows of block. And as I was pressing the seams to one side, I discovered that one of the small black squares had a hole in it. I have no idea how it got there. Itinerant moths? Most likely that tiny hole was already in my fabric strip when I cut it into squares. But the thought of having to rip that unit out of a quilt so near completion is disheartening. I just rolled it up and went off to procrastinate with my laptop.

I love quilting, but in every project I seem to reach a point where it's hard to go on. Either I've got to correct a mistake, or I've got to trudge through a boring stage of the project, or there's a "hard part" that I'll love having done, but I dread actually doing it. There's nothing for it but the virtue of perseverance, a virtue which is in short supply in my sewing room. (It's not something that you can stock up on when you've got a 50%-off coupon from Jo-Ann's.) I know I need to just pick up my seam ripper and have at it! But like St. Paul, I do neither what I want nor what I ought. Instead, I spent much of the evening just clicking around the Internet. What a waste!

I guess my spiritual muscles are as weak as my physical muscles -- and both from lack of exercise! Okay, tomorrow after Mass I will square my shoulders and march back to the sewing machine, invoking St. Michael as I pick up my seam ripper. I will think of it as a tiny little sword. Who knew that a quilter's sewing room might actually be a training ground for larger battles in the greater world?

I Dabble in Heirloom Sewing

The new stitch plate for the 1130 came in time for my heirloom sewing class today. And as it turned out, I needed those inch markings for the class, so I was glad it arrived in such a timely manner. (I'll also try using the new stitch plate on the B&SS quilt tomorrow to see if I can get the same seam allowance as the 1530 was giving me.)

Although I prefer quilt making to garment sewing, I adore learning new sewing techniques. So I had a lot of fun today at the Heirloom Technique workshop held at The Fabric Patch today. It's a prerequisite for the Heirloom Blouse class which I also intend to take. Both classes are taught by Donna Lasky, a fantastic teacher who really knew her stuff. (She was trained my Martha Pullen.) She kept us hard at it, but I enjoyed myself so much that, when we were done, I was surprised to find that we'd run two hours over the allotted class time.

As we worked through the different techniques, we assembled our samples into a notebook, recording our own customized sewing machine settings for each one. (BTW, the samples pictured above are still unfinished. I need to take the basting stitches out of the blue one and I still need to do entredeux stitches around the shaped lace circle.)

Some of the women in the class were wishing they had granddaughters to sew for. I have four granddaughters, and I love to sew for them. But I don't think I'd make them heirloom dresses. For one thing, I can remember how boring it was to wear fancy clothes when I was young -- dresses that were "too good" (and often too uncomfortable) to play in. I'd rather make them things they can have fun wearing. But for another, I'd rather sew them dresses that will not engender regret on my part no matter what happens to them.

For my darling granddaughters (A.K.A. "The Wild Girls") are probably not as docile and inhibited as I was about taking care of a Special Occasion dress though they do love wearing pretty dresses in which one can dance and twirl. But sometimes princesses just gotta climb trees!

When I was at Upland Vac & Sew, where I bought some supplies for this class, one of the staff told me about a customer who had made her granddaughter a very fancy heirloom dress for Easter which represented 100 hours of painstaking work. The little girl wore it on Easter morning while riding the brand new Big Wheel which her father had just given her. The skirt of the dress got caught and ripped, wrapping itself around the axle as she merrily continued to pedal. The child was not fazed in the least. "Don't worry. Grandma can fix it!" I find her confidence heartwarming, though I can't help wondering if Grandma's heart didn't stop for a moment.

But wouldn't it be fun to make a christening gown? Or a bridal nightgown? Or an old fashioned, romantic blouse? And I look forward to occasionally using some of these techniques to embellish fun-to-wear but relatively sturdy dresses for my beloved Wild Girls.

Bernina Woe!

I was zipping through the Bricks & Stepping Stones quilt when I noticed something odd: the straight stitch on my Bernina 1530 had metamorphosed. It was still a straight stitch, but instead of the usual 12 stitches per inch, it was churning out about 24!

When I tested the other stitches, the machine behaved very erratically. Sometimes they were sewn out properly. Other times the machine attempted to sew them backwards. And frequently it stitches nothing but gibberish. Since it's a computerized machine, I assume it's a problem with the board. Woe!

When my beloved 1090 suffered a disaster two years ago, I could not afford to get it fixed. Now that the 1530 has Alzheimer's (which is sure to be a pricey repair), I've fallen back on the 1130 which my sister gave me when she was cleaning out her garage. I'm scheduled to take a class in heirloom sewing techniques this Friday, so I've been trying to familiarize myself with the 1130 and making sure that all the stitches work properly.

Unfortunately, the guide lines on the stitch plate seem to be metric so I can't get an accurate 1/4" seam.* Though I've discovered that by adjusting the needle position one click to the left, I can approximate a 5/8" seam. I called in an order for an American stitch plate (relatively inexpensive), but until it's delivered I'll have to content myself with garment sewing.

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*Yes, I do have a #37 foot, but I get better results by using the guidelines on the stitch plate.

All Bonnets and Aprons Finished

An unexpected visit to Texas allowed me to hand deliver the bonnets and aprons to my granddaughters. Here are the girls posing in front of their playhouse. They adore dress-up games, and were so eager to play "Laura & Mary" (from Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" books) that, despite the heat and humidity, they donned long-sleeved dresses for a more authentic look . Of course there was a bit of a tussle between the two older ones over who would get to portray Laura. (They compromised on being Laura and Laura's friend; poor Mary was sent off to college.) Fortunately, the youngest girl was quite content to be Carrie.

Their baby brother was heart broken that he did not receive a bonnet -- he likes to do everything the older ones do. But he seemed to have recovered his equanimity by the time we took the photograph.

The next time I want to make pioneer headgear, I think I'll try the Slatted Sunbonnet pattern posted by Elizabeth Stewart Clark. It's a PDF file which includes a chart for drafting sizes that will fit infants, toddlers, girls and women. The reason I didn't use her pattern this time was that you have to take the slats out when you wash the bonnet. (The slats are usually card stock or pasteboard and serve to stiffen the brim.) I thought that might be a bit of a hassle for their mum, though on another website it was suggested that if the slats were made of thin plastic (perhaps quilter's template plastic?) that it could stay inside the bonnet and survive going through the wash. Personally, I wonder if the sewn-in plastic wouldn't stress the fabric and cause it to tear while in the washing machine. And you wouldn't be able to iron the bonnet afterwards for fear of melting the plastic.

But I guess it will be a bit of a while before I do bonnets again.

Next up on the sewing agenda:

1) Finish the Bricks and Stepping Stones quilt.

2) Sew something I can wear to work as most of my stuff is either worn out or doesn't fit any more. (Monday will be my first day back on the job since the foot surgery.)

A Lucky Find

No, this is not my dirty laundry even though I do plan to wash it. My mum and I went thrifting today, and I finally hit the jackpot.

We had stopped by the Assistance League Thrift Shop on our way home from someplace else, and while my mother worked her way through the racks of clothing, I idly flipped through the sewing patterns and pawed through the fabrics and linens. Nothing really exciting. However, I bought two mildly vintage patterns, McCall's 8335, which was published in 1966, and Butterick 6037, which is probably from the mid-seventies. I already have plenty of patterns, but lately, whenever I find a vintage pattern, I react the same way Huck Finn's father did whenever he encountered a chicken.

Pap always said, take a chicken when you get a chance, because if you don't want him yourself you can easy find somebody that does, and a good deed ain't ever forgot. I never see pap when he didn't want the chicken himself, but that is what he used to say, anyway.

Except that I always pay for my chickens -- er, patterns -- before I take them home. (They were only 25 cents apiece!)

Then I saw the sign -- "Fourth of July Sale." All clothes and shoes and were marked down to $1.00. Hooray!

How often I've read with envy those posts on Quiltville Chat from ladies whose local thrift stores sell men's shirts for a song. Some even sell them by the pound. But the shops in our area often want as much as $5.00 per shirt.

I've been wanting to make this thrifty quilt for quite some time. Now if I can just find a couple of light shirts at a yard sale, I'll be good to go.

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By the way, the feline blur is our tabby, Priscilla, who takes her job as a fabric inspector very seriously.

Apron and Bonnet Progress -- Or Lack of It!

I thought I was going to be finished with the second of the prairie aprons and sunbonnets today, but I made an annoying mistake on the inside of the brim which is going to call for some "frog-sewing." (Rip-it, rip-it!)

My problem is that I tried to modify the lining of the bonnet brim, and now it doesn't fit. Sigh! I think I have trouble altering garments because I find it so difficult to visualize in three dimensions. Quilts, being two dimensional, are so much easier to design, sew, or modify.

(The purple and lavender floral to the right of the apron is the print I'll be using for the next one. It looks rather washed out on this photo; it's really brighter than it appears.)

Since reverse sewing always makes me downcast, I decided to take a break and do the hand work on the inside of the apron's waistband.