I sewed and sewed yesterday and managed to complete the inside of the Christmas quilt I posted a picture of yesterday. I am at a stall now because I hadn't even thought about border fabric. I didn't know if I was ever going to get the quilt made, so border fabric was far from my mind. The quilt shop is closed today so I will look online to order fabric.
The partial seams were about to get the best of me. There was very little of the quilt that did not involve partial seams at some point. And there were no directions on how to accomplish the putting together part. This set of patterns is from an old block of the month put out by Oxmoor House and is no longer available. I substituted blocks here and there to suit myself. It is a relief to have gotten this far on a long project. For your information, I no longer have the pattern set. Keep watching E-Bay and maybe a reasonably priced set will come up for sale some day.
I purchased a vintage sewing machine off of E-Bay. It is a Bell and is very small. But don't be fooled. It is not a child's machine. The attachments are full size and there are a lot of them. I always think of them as tools of torture because there are so many strange looking ones with the older machines.
The machine stores in a briefcase. The machine itself supposedly weights nine pounds. I have not weighed it but it is very light weight. The foot pedal is full size.
The case is not in the best of shape. It is intact but somewhat dried out as far as the felt lining and the vinyl outside. There are more attachments under the white plastic slide out that are not showing in the picture.
Here is how the machine fits in the case.
And to get an idea of its size, a picture sitting in front of my Bernina.
I first saw one of the machines in November at an antique shop. Price was $300. More than I wanted to spend but I thought it was so cute. I did an online search for information on the machine and learned it was not a toy and billed as the world's smallest sewing machine. From the mid 1950's. The article I read led me to believe that $300 was too high of a price. I saw some of the machines on E-Bay and as low as $48 but that one had no foot pedal. In fact, I found three with no foot pedal. Wonder why. One of the no foot pedal ones is still on E-Bay for $189. A really good one passed me by at $125. I should have bid. I kept watching one that had one tiny picture that would not enlarge and very little info about the machine. I contacted the seller and asked for a better picture but he said his camera was broken. He was selling it "As Is" but plugged it in and said "it works" and does have the foot pedal. I finally took a leap of faith with the seller and purchased it for $80. It arrived yesterday. Needed cleaning up and still does a little more. Every thing but the instruction book is there but I can order a copy of one. I am sure that I won't be making a quilt using the machine but I do like smaller size machines and have a small collection of them. From reading online, they do sew but would not handle heavy duty sewing. The machine hesitates a little when I first press the pedal but I read that is the way they work.
It is after noon now and I have not sewed one stitch today. Have to get busy.
Happy New Year to all of you. We will be cooking sauerkraut and pork and making mashed potatoes which is our traditional New Year's meal. And we will stay home. We went out on New Year's Eve years ago and decided staying home and safe was the thing to do.
Karen
The partial seams were about to get the best of me. There was very little of the quilt that did not involve partial seams at some point. And there were no directions on how to accomplish the putting together part. This set of patterns is from an old block of the month put out by Oxmoor House and is no longer available. I substituted blocks here and there to suit myself. It is a relief to have gotten this far on a long project. For your information, I no longer have the pattern set. Keep watching E-Bay and maybe a reasonably priced set will come up for sale some day.
I purchased a vintage sewing machine off of E-Bay. It is a Bell and is very small. But don't be fooled. It is not a child's machine. The attachments are full size and there are a lot of them. I always think of them as tools of torture because there are so many strange looking ones with the older machines.
The machine stores in a briefcase. The machine itself supposedly weights nine pounds. I have not weighed it but it is very light weight. The foot pedal is full size.
The case is not in the best of shape. It is intact but somewhat dried out as far as the felt lining and the vinyl outside. There are more attachments under the white plastic slide out that are not showing in the picture.
Here is how the machine fits in the case.
And to get an idea of its size, a picture sitting in front of my Bernina.
I first saw one of the machines in November at an antique shop. Price was $300. More than I wanted to spend but I thought it was so cute. I did an online search for information on the machine and learned it was not a toy and billed as the world's smallest sewing machine. From the mid 1950's. The article I read led me to believe that $300 was too high of a price. I saw some of the machines on E-Bay and as low as $48 but that one had no foot pedal. In fact, I found three with no foot pedal. Wonder why. One of the no foot pedal ones is still on E-Bay for $189. A really good one passed me by at $125. I should have bid. I kept watching one that had one tiny picture that would not enlarge and very little info about the machine. I contacted the seller and asked for a better picture but he said his camera was broken. He was selling it "As Is" but plugged it in and said "it works" and does have the foot pedal. I finally took a leap of faith with the seller and purchased it for $80. It arrived yesterday. Needed cleaning up and still does a little more. Every thing but the instruction book is there but I can order a copy of one. I am sure that I won't be making a quilt using the machine but I do like smaller size machines and have a small collection of them. From reading online, they do sew but would not handle heavy duty sewing. The machine hesitates a little when I first press the pedal but I read that is the way they work.
It is after noon now and I have not sewed one stitch today. Have to get busy.
Happy New Year to all of you. We will be cooking sauerkraut and pork and making mashed potatoes which is our traditional New Year's meal. And we will stay home. We went out on New Year's Eve years ago and decided staying home and safe was the thing to do.
Karen