Step Away from the Machine

Sometimes you have to step away from the machine. Last weekend, I was happily quilting along with what I thought was my fixed vintage Singer. Not.

Step away and begin again. I angry seam ripped out all of my work and went back to my Brother. Well not quite angry, more like irritated.  I had to take a week hiatus from the craft room. Seemingly, all things had conspired against me at once.

Back to my Brother manual, rethreading, restarting is sometimes what it takes being machine challenged. I did find out that I can't free motion quilt with my repaired machine. I am not sure if I messed it up so much now it can't switch to that mode. It will be straight line quilting for me for awhile. That is how this Country Fall Cubicle Cover was finished. It would also look good in a country kitchen.
The majority of the piecework was done by mystery quilter. I too send my unwanted, half finished projects to the Great Thrift Shop Beyond.  It is all good.
Backing to Country Fall Cubicle Cover. It measures 23"x 62".

What do you do when it is over 100 degrees day after day? Apparently, I catch up on quilting projects. Here is my Vintage Fabric Quilt that has been in the basted stage for a number of months. Began back in January here. I am quilting squiggly lines with my walking foot.

I am also going to "slow stitch" this project and remove the basting as I do each infilled wavy line.

My mood for Pattern of the Day is the 1967 Simplicity.

Linking up with scraphappy-saturday

Son's quilt finished

Two months behind schedule - son's quilt is finished, it is king-sized plus! I first began the project here. While I did the piecing and binding, a long armer Jennifer Strauser at dizzyquilter did the quilting. My task was to avoid using floral prints at my son's request and to use as many scraps as possible.

I have come up with my own unique pieced element - the Shooting Gallery Border. One of my happy mistakes.

I have learned so much in the 3+ years I have been quilting. When I began I learned to piece the blocks (somewhat) and called that quilting (when it really was just piecing). 

I have learned about large scale and small scale fabrics - ruining a lovely large scale cat print fabric in the process but salvaged it to survive in another creation. 

I have learned more about sewing machines, how to clean and maintain them, the different processes involved with each machine and now what to look for. My recent purchase of a vintage Singer is now up and running. I am currently quilting a country fall cubicle cover. Layout shown on this post. My cubicle covers could also be used as table runners. I like to hang them up to showcase them.

Linking up with Cynthia at quiltingismorefunthanhousework.

9/1 update to linkup with Amanda Jean at crazymomquilts for Finish It Up Friday.

Slightly less than $10 thrifting total included a Real Tree camoflauge shirt, a Nick & Mo colorful embroidery embellished sweater and a painted wineglass.

Leaving you with my newest favorite song. I hadn't listened to country in many years, preferring to listen to other genres, but Maren Morris has called me back into the fold. 

Do you like country décor or listen to country music?

Patriotic quilt finished

I had hoped to finish this patriotic quilt prior to Labor Day and I am right on schedule. This project began in January putting-together-preassembled. What delights me about this one is the top and binding are entirely of thrifted fabric from one lot, the backing purchased retail. I suspect mystery quilter made the strips for this quilt in a jelly roll race.

Son's quilt is finishing up to be a close second. It is a king-sized quilt. I've got two sides left to bind.

Caregiver's Day was 1/2 off at hospice thrift with enough batting to finish a cubicle cover fall project. I will highlight it when I'm done.

an entire bag of extra loft batting and *sings the word* Vintage fabric.

This lump of loveliness is all usable fabric. The "gingham" labeled in the picture with tag is yardage cut in 1964.

I qualified as a caregiver because the Mr. had a medical procedure and I was home for the day. Uninterrupted hours of hand stitching result in getting things done!

An upside to taking sewing projects to a waiting room surgical center opens conversations with others where you might not have found a common interest.

The doctors and nurses also loved looking at my work in progress. One doctor commented, "Way to make great use of time!"

Do you take hand sewing projects along with you?

Linking up with Kelly at myquiltinfatuation for Needle and Thread Thursday.

Sing a Song of Singer

Putting together the pieces of a $1 bag of premade squares and two borders from mystery quilter produced this layout.

In my first layout, I put the four patch dark brown pieces together as the centers in the square but it didn't have the same playful feeling of this combination.

These two small chicken print remnants will become appliques or perhaps corner pieces. I did the fabric pulled fabric from my stash to add to the fabric that came with the pieces.

After skittering around with buying the wrong manual and parts for my vintage Singer, I discovered I have not joined the Featherweight club after all. The machine that I have is a 15-91, otherwise known as the Farmer's Wife machine.

My skooling on the care and feeding of the Singer continues. I am a big fan of YouTube and found a comprehensive cleaning tutorial here. In addition to the oil I had already purchased, I bought lubricant for the motor and grease for the gears. I had hoped to post a video showing the machine at work but the bobbin tension is giving me fits right now. I am going to take it and the American Home in cabinet one in for repair.

I always underestimate the time it takes to complete a quilt but in a good way. After my Brother sewing machine returned home and AFTER I read the manual, I was ready to complete the binding on my son's quilt. Not only did I do that, I completed quilting on my patriotic quilt. That one went quicker on completion because I decided to keep the quilting uncomplicated. I have found that more thread equals a stiffer quilt and that might be all fine and good for a wall hanging but not so much for a cozy lap quilt.

Finally got my EBay account up and running again, so I can list items I have been meaning to sell. I am going to group the collectibles together such as a MAD comic book along with a MAD card game - both unique items.

Do you like working with premade fabric pieces?
Linking up with Em at Em's Scrapbag for Moving it Forward Monday.

I have succumbed to the Singer featherweight's song

I had been watching a Singer featherweight on a certain online auction site but when I saw the bidding top $300, I knew I has out of the game. For some reason, I just knew there was a Singer featherweight for sale at hospice thrift. She was calling to me. It was half off day, so priced at $100, she was mine for $50.


I had already purchased machine oil after bringing home my Brother machine. Featherweight was oiled following a chart Oiling_and_Lubrication_Points_for_the_Singer_Featherweight.  I've got her pegged as a 1951 221 edition (experts, help me out here). She is missing the bobbin casing and bobbin. Most likely she is in for a trip to sewing machine repair to supply any missing parts. I cannot wait to sew with this vintage machine.

I was watching one of my favorite classic movies, The Rainmaker from 1956, with Katharine Hepburn and Burt Lancaster, filmed in black and white but since colorized. I saw a detail in the movie that only a quilter would notice. Katherine's brother pulled a quilt top from her hope chest to keep Burt Lancaster warm since he was staying in the barn overnight. She also clutches the top and spins around with it at some point in the movie. Why do I bring this up? Because it is only a quilt top not a quilt. Here is an image of her wrapped in it.

As promised, I chose the most interesting contents of a $2 sewing basket purchased thrift. In 1984, a Mrs. J.P. Werner participated in a fabric butterfly exchange for a quilt pattern.


Pattern by Ruby Hinson Duncan

She included the written directions, the participants and possible quilting patterns.

There were a couple of sketches,

And numerous transfer patterns.





Just sharing some sewing goodness this Saturday night and linking up with Beverly for anything-goes-pink-saturday-august-5-2017.

It's my Blogiversary

And I'll post if I want to. Six years strong and still going on. I really enjoy this platform. I am never at a loss for posts with my fiber art interests, college attending tendencies, living rural and working urban smack in the center of Sacramento. Never mind that four thrift shops are within walking distance from where I work and five are on my route up in the Sierra foothills.

A little backstory to those new in my audience. This began as a thrifting blog. I then rebranded (don't you just love that word?) as a fashion blogger modeling thrifted fashion. I met other fashion bloggers in person and online that I still follow to this day. Many have moved over to Instagram and have abandoned their blogs.

I rebranded yet again a couple of years ago and stopped modeling thrifted fashion and purchased Sally Stand In, a vintage dress form just my size. I love her, she has taken up permanent residence in my sewing room.

That rebranding also included taking up an interest in quilting. I have always wanted to quilt but was way too intimidated by the craft. I would love to be able to bounce things off a guild but my time and location don't allow that at this point in my life. Luckily, I had some sewing background so I wasn't totally in the dark and Youtube videos came to my rescue when I would get stuck on a certain element (binding a quilt comes to mind - which direction does the material go when I get to a corner? I've finally got it down now).

Other side interests include vintage dolls and clothes patterns and sewing-related ephemera.

I've bumped into a giveaway at http://www.royalvintageshoes.com/vintage-shoe-brands/royal-vintage-shoes-footwear for $175 to purchase on that site. I am especially enamored of these 1940s white vintage oxfords.

Another link, unrelated to the rest is the discovery of this custom woodworker, designer/maker of Asian influenced furniture and home décor saikiwoodwork.com. I'm in love ~ *sighs*

With another hot weekend in store, I will be continuing my inside activities of quilting and scanning images onto my laptop.

What new loves have you discovered online?

Dress collage pattern

My newest OMG I want to make this piece of fabric artistry is the Dress Collage Pattern by Laura Heine featured at myquiltingloft.com.

Found her during the monthly FabHopShop. Fabric and a skirt and fashion all in one. My life is complete. I adore that newsprint background but I might opt to do the fabric skirt pieces rounded rather than square.

Speaking of patterns, Maddie over at badassquilterssociety.com had a recent post about content theft, quilting patterns in particular. I guess some groups take a pattern, strip off the creator's signature and then circulate. Boy, that's a tough one, I know I can draw pretty much whatever I see so I never buy patterns. I've only done one paper pieced quilt, the pattern was free and I ended up winging it anyway. Freezer paper+Tami=frustration.

I cracked the Top 15 of local Sacramento bloggers at http://sacramento.cityvoter.com/best/local-blogger/local-flavor/sacramento hoping to make the Top 10 next year.

When I am not thrifting for myself, I am thrifting for others. Salvation Army saves the day with the best pricing and sales, Levis button fly jeans and Faded Glory shorts both for my son - $4 total. I find that Salvation Army and the hospice based thrift shops have the best pricing.


My Brother sewing machine is back in its rightful place. Maybe this time I will read the manual before actually using the machine. I will be concentrating on finishing up a few quilts I started this year and last.

Do you enjoy working with quilt patterns?