silverdarner

Another vintage machine, this time from the mother of one of my daughter's friends. He needs his foot pedal rewired, but sews like a champ...and takes the same pattern stitch cams as my pink machine.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrelia/7238910228/

Well, I've been on a quest for a Singer 503a machine because it's so cute, has all-metal drive gears and can use cams for decorative stitches. Well, I found instead a 328, which has all the features I liked in the 503, with the added feature of being one of the few zig-zag machines that is designed with the option of treadle power in mind.

While I have no intention of disconnecting its perfectly sound motor, it's nice to have options!

:D

While posting the baby hat a little while ago, I realized that I never posted the finished shirt I made for Shawn.




Since I had so much fun with that, I've been wanting to make something from linen for myself.


This pattern is a little large for me, but I'm hoping to get the alterations worked out in the toile stage.


I have some lovely dark green and khaki medium-weight that I'm considering at the moment. Or maybe green and white...

An ex-coworker is expecting, so I HAD to make a baby hat for the little one. In case you can't tell, it's for a girl. ;)

Major construction on the shirt is finished. I've even conquered my fear of working buttonholes and eyelets.




Now I'm preparing to trace the patterns for the embroidered details.

OK, maybe now I can get back to working on the shirt. Last week I found a treadle sewing machine in a garage sale for $25. I've spent my free time the last week cleaning, adjusting and refinishing the cabinet.





I think it turned out pretty well.

Well, I had the muslin cut out to check the fit of the shirt and I went to my trusty ol' #66. Unfortunately, I discovered that my drive belt had snapped. I figured, "No problem, I'll just 'borrow' one from one of the project machines." (Those are my thrift-shop finds that need some work.) I had forgotten that I'd already done this, twice before. So it was off to the fabric store, where they had one belt in stock. When I got home I replaced the belt and spent a couple of hours giving the poor old thing a thorough cleaning and oiling. I even disassembled and cleaned the light fixture...there was a LOT of glunk on the inside of that glass! Naturally, once it was all clean, the bulb promptly burned out. I picked up a new one later in the week.



Back to the shirt.

I assembled the muslin and found that the length on the medium will be adequate, but it needs to come in just a smidge on the shoulders. All I need to do is increase the seam allowance and it looks pretty good. So I was ready to start work on the real thing.

I began with the front right side with the inset panel. After sewing the three pieces together, I pressed and rolled the seam edges into a false french seam.



Then, I pressed the the rolled seams and stitched them down from the outside.



The panel looks pretty straight, we'll have to wait and see how it hangs on the finished shirt.

I forgot to mention that before I was laid off that I had just located and bought a copy of this book:

I was a little reluctant to spend $45 on a single book but there is a lot of good info in there!

Well, I haven't been as busy with the spinning wheel and loom as I would like due to a crazy work schedule. But since I was laid off last month, I've had a little more time to work on projects. I am, of course, looking for work every weekday from 8-5 (plus evenings and weekends if I have leads.) but I need something to do in the evenings to keep myself from getting anxious.

So, I've decided to dig into my linen stash and make my husband a shirt. He's been very supportive of me since I lost my job, so I think he deserves something nice from me.



I'm basing the shirt on this "Kwik Sew" camp shirt pattern with an inset strip on one side. I'll have to do some adjusting because the pattern has 1/4" seam allowances and I need about 1/2" to finish the seams so the linen won't ravel. Fortunately, he's a bit bigger than the small and a bit smaller than the medium so I think that I can use the medium pattern and only have to make some teensy adjustments.

The shirt will be dark blue with a gray stripe and I'll probably do some embroidery to snazz it up in the manner of those nice vintage Nat Nast shirts.

It's been a long while since I last posted. But hey, I've been busy with the offspring's school activities, getting laid off, finding a new job and getting back to work. Oh well....

Anyway, I've retrieved the spinning wheel from my Mom's house. She hasn't used it in ages because the Flyer broke in half and simply gluing it together wasn't sturdy enough.

So, I cleaned the old glue off the wood, re-glued the pieces and then filled the gaps with wood putty. I knew that wasn't going to be enough in the long run and consulted my books of joinery. I figure that my best chances of having a positive outcome is with an inset butterfly spline on both sides.

I've never carved anything for inlay or joinery so my first efforts aren't the prettiest in the world, but it was MUCH easier than I thought it would be. (It helps that my husband keeps his gouges beyond razor sharp!) In fact, I found that the hardest part was actually in cutting out the butterflies because the wood kept cracking and coming apart.



Also, I was a bit overzealous in my clamping and squished the wood a bit.

But I think that the repair will hold.

If it doesn't, I'll just have to make a new one from scratch.