Another sewing machine!

As I last mentioned in October, I had no intentions of getting another Singer sewing machine. I was on the wagon!  That is until I got a message from my friend Pattie in North Carolina (a 10 hour drive away), 

. . . asking me if I wanted this machine!  The price was right, F-R-E-E.  Of course I jumped at it. 

Now, just how to get it back to Missouri?  It then dawned on me, we had a blacksmith friend that was going that way in a week to take a class at John C. Campbell Folk school. 

So I jumped into action and called my friend Kathy who lives in Brasstown. I asked her if Pattie could drop the machine at her house, so that Missouri  Bob could pick it up there.

Yes, all the stars lined up.

October 27th, after dropping our daughter and her family off at the St Louis airport, we took a little detour  to DeSoto Missouri. Bob had this waiting for me. 

This is what it looks like after a day with me and my best friend, denatured  alcohol, working together. 

Beautiful!!!

I love the fact that it's a hand crank. It's a 15-K model made in 1904. There were 2500 of them made that year between January and June.

The decals are called Sphinx.  Between the Singer and the Sphinx you can see some flaking. I believe this was done when the lady that used it all the time, had probably a piece of fabric wrapped around there, and that was her pin cushion.  What a "no-no"!

So there is now my 15th machine!

Last but not least one more machine I received F-R-E-E

My brother in law Pat, who is a faithful reader of my blog, gave this to me. He found it when deer hunting last week. It came home and was set on my kitchen island.  About an hour later I went in the kitchen to find ANTS, crawling all over my cabinet!!!

So until I can get it cleaned up, it's in the garage in time out.

I did turn down the following machine. It was in pretty rough shape. It's a Willcox and Gibbs, just like the one I bought at Goodwill for $30. However this one came with it's original stand, which is a killer!! 

She is asking $75 for it. It was her Grandmother's machine.

The cabinet had too much peeling veneer, the metal stand was rusted, the top plate was so rusted you couldn't read the writing on it. It had a drawer full of attachments, even a box of the hard to find needles. The book was there, but in many pieces. Both the keys, one for the drawer and one for the cabinet were there too. 

I will always dream of the stand!

A signature quilt

Five weeks before my niece Callie's wedding I received a call from her, asking if I would make a signature quilt for her wedding.  She was wanting to do a quilt for the guests to sign (since signing a book is so old fashioned).

I pulled out my books and patterns and found a block called just that, Signature!

Sept 19, we met at the quilt store. I had in mind that she was wanting old fashioned fabric, such as these 30's & 40's reproductions. 

However she was wanting more muted colors that would match her wedding theme. 
She picked these 6 fabrics by Moda. She is such a good shopper (being a Textile and Apparel Management graduate helps). All of these fabrics were in the sale bin. Several were all remaining on the bolt and so we got got an additional discount.

As I started cutting the selvages off (I collect them), I noticed something very interesting. There was a theme going on, "Best Wishes", "Together", and Women of Courage".  Could she had gotten anything more appropriate?  She didn't even realize it.

This is the pattern that I first laid out and emailed the photo to her. It's 140 blocks or approximately 50 inches by 70 inches.

I got this reply from Callie, "Aunt Patti, can you add some birds to it? " I said sure, I think I can do that.

"Ok", she said, "How about our names?" Sure I can do that.

"And how about the date too?"  Sure, anything else?  

"No, I think that is all", she replied.

So I found a paper piece pattern for two birds, reversing one so they would look like love birds. 

Here is the finished piece.

If you enlarge the picture you can see I took some of the selvage and sewed it in the birds mouth to represent straw. 

Here is a picture of the finished quilt after I sewed on the binding. 

And here is a picture of the beautiful bride!!!

Here I am with the quilt as it hung at the reception. It worked great for signing. Two ladies attended and supervised the signatures. I had sewn in a pocket to hang it from PVC pipes. It had cardboard against the back for stability.

Soon she will return it and I will hand quilt it. I've also asked Callie's Grandma who is 87 years young to help. 

Best Wishes, Callie and Aaron!

4 weeks out!?!

I've been down.  For 4 weeks I was not well.

I was tested for Mono, tested for strep, had a cat scan on my neck, had a scope put down my nose and throat. . . 4 doctor visits to 3 different doctors, 4 different prescriptions, and in the end I was diagnosed with a virus. The last doctor said he would not rule out internal shingles, which I had suspected for the last two weeks of treatments. (Thank you very much family Dr Larraine). I even put it out on facebook asking my peeps if any of them had ever had internal shingles. Stitchin by the Lake from Arkansas told me her sister, who lives in my town had them. I went straight to the phone and dialed Sherry up. Yep my symptoms and hers matched. Oh to have blogging friends!!

Internal shingles are hard to diagnose and there is really no treatment if not caught early. Symptoms are swollen lymph glands, ear pain, fever, swollen throat, lack of energy, and lost of appetite, all of which I had. I lost 12 pounds the first two weeks. When you can't swallow, the weight drops off quickly. It can last 3-5 weeks.

Today is the 4 week mark and I am on the road to recovery. So today for the first time in 30 days, I thought I'd try a cup of Mocha cappuccino.

Well, my daughter was afraid I'd be climbing the walls with a caffeine buzz!

Don't worry, I got not even half of it down and decided it just wasn't what I wanted. I tell you I had been addicted to them.  I'd drink one every day and some times two. Maybe that craving is now long gone. It's a good thing.

I have so much blogging to catch up on. Today is the first time I have been on my big computer for more than 10 minutes at a time.

I have to tell you about the quilt I made for the wedding that I talked about in my last post, about more sewing machines, about Deer camp 2014, and then there's Thanksgiving tomorrow. I will get back to blogging ASAP.

Today, I have child labor helping . . .

Here's hoping to a happy healthy Thanksgiving to all my blogging friends!

A BUSY weekend!!

I'm a little late in posting the excitement we had a week and a half ago. A sinus infection with an ear ache has me laying low. I'm tired of being under the weather for 5 days and counting.

On Friday morning the blacksmith and I picked up our Florida family at the St Louis airport. They were coming in for a 4 day visit. 

They were also going to surprise the blacksmith's big family at his niece's wedding the following day. 

The first thing we did on Friday afternoon was start baking pies for the wedding. I had 7 to make.

Then I sneaked in a surprise visit for both Jessica and Sarah. They grew up together, rode the bus together, and spent many days playing at each other's house. They also got married a week apart and shared wedding decorations.

Jess wanted me to do some sewing for her, so I told her to bring the fabric over Friday afternoon. We were all outside enjoying the beautiful Florida like weather in Missouri when Jess drove up. It was fun seeing the two them together with their boys. They hadn't seen each other in several years.

Connor and Lizzie were enjoying the nice big ball for a long time. That is until someone dropped it on the metal pinwheel you can just barely see in the back ground. So much for that ball.

However, uncle Jeremy stopped and got Connor a new one later in the day.

Alex got tired of standing I guess?

Connor a.k.a. "muscle man" loved playing outside. You have to love those red checks!

On Saturday night, he had to show Grandma how he can feed himself Greek yogurt.

 

On Saturday morning he had to watch Micky in his Micky pajamas.

Soon it was wedding time.

Here is the blacksmith's niece, Callie. She was beautiful!  She graduates in December with a textile and apparel management degree. She has already landed a job in Florida with Chicos!

Notice the beautiful flowers behind them and around them!  There were so many mason jars and the big tin planter. They were just beautiful. I am going to have to ask Father Medina what was so funny.

The wedding had a rustic theme. The bride's family made most of the decorations. Notice the cupcake holder?  It was made from planks of old wood. The wedding cake was just for the bride and groom.  It was small. Along with my 7 apples pies, there were also 7 pumpkin and 7 peach pies.

This was the wedding party table. Notice the handmade votive candle lights. It was decorated with grapevines and pearls. The back drop is many yards of ribbons and fabrics cut into strips, and shirred on one long rod.

Here is Rusty, Sarah, Connor, and Grandma Wieberg. Oh I almost forgot baby bump!!! Yes they are expecting #2 in April!!!

Another view of the head table.

There were even decorations on the bathroom doors. This was a picture of Callie when she was in her sister's wedding.

It was a great day!  So much fun seeing the look on everyone's faces when they saw Rusty and Sarah there!

On Sunday we did a big family dinner.

 Jeremy contributed way too many beautiful beef steaks to the dinner!

There was some of our fresh garden lettuce.

But before dinner it was time to take some family pictures. It's nice to have a daughter in law who is a professional. But then it made it a little hard to get her in the pictures, so we called my BFF (Jessica's mother) to fill in as photographer for the group shot.

I leave you with this one of the grands. This time next year there will be F-I-V-E

Life is good!

I fell off the wagon again.

Yes it happened again.  I now own another vintage sewing machine.  As mentioned in this post dated September 8, I really didn't think I needed another machine.

However thanks to social media (face book messenger) I got word from my friend Sue, that the local Goodwill had this old machine. 

I really knew nothing about a Willcox & Gibbs machine. I emailed my sewing machine friend/expert Phil. He told me they were a late 1800 machine and if I didn't want it he would take it. 

At 8:55 this morning, the blacksmith and I were sitting in our truck on the parking lot of the Goodwill store waiting for their 9 AM opening. 

Here it is, still in it's original floor model cabinet. According to the dating information we found on line, this one was made about 1912.  These are chain stitch machines. After oiling and very carefully/cautiously plugging it in, it was running. It is very quiet just as the book claims. It will get new electrical cords.

Alex Askaroff has a great article about these machines.

 There were 2 books inside the cabinet.

 Look at this neat foot pedal! It weighs over 6 pounds

The sewing plate is so cool too.

Look at the  Willcox and Gibbs medallion, isn't it beautiful?

A close up of the motor.

14 machines and holding.

Bye for now.  I'm climbing back onto the wagon!

What a week!

On Wednesday morning the blacksmith and I were up way early for us.  After all, he was the bus driver for 20 of my friends. We were going road tripping to Missouri Star Quilt Co.

Our first stop was our church parking lot where we picked up 12 ladies. Next we went into Jefferson City and picked up 6 at the commuter parking lot. Luckily for the blacksmith one of those was Jim, who would be the co-pilot and male company for the driver.

The final stop for passenger pick up was my friend Mara in Ashland.

Our first stop was the Ben Franklin shop in Macon, Missouri.  As you can see by the above picture, the Mizzou fabric was a real attention getter.

Moda makes this sock monkey fabric all in flannels. I liked the brown, that looked just like the socks! It made me think of my friends Margie and Bev who make hundreds of sock monkeys.

As you can tell there was a long line of customers (Ha! All from my bus.) for the cutting table.

Next stop was Missouri Star Quilt Company in Hamilton Missouri. The intermittent rain did not dampen anyone's spirits!

While we were in town, our friends Margie and Phil met us for lunch. Margie had to hurry back to work before I could snap a picture. But here my bus driver and Phil swap a few blacksmith stories, as they both are very experienced in that field.

 I found this coffin top machine in an antique store down the street.

Before heading back on the bus, I enjoyed a little ice cream while seeing what everyone bought in the 4 or 5 shops of Missouri Star Quilt Company.

 We then found a guy from the down under to snap a group picture of us. He was teased about coming so far to shop at a quilt store. 

We then boarded the bus for home. That is until 2 of the ladies mentioned another quilt store in Brookfield that would be on our way home. So on our way, we played B-I-N-G-O. I had 4 beautiful quilters/sewing necklaces provided by my jewelry maker Angie. The one I liked best said Quilt Diva! There was also some of my home made quilters hand lotion.

This is Hueffmeier's Fine Pines Quilt shop, in Brookfield. Don't let the metal building fool you, it was gorgeous inside! The 2 ladies were so nice and we just didn't want to leave there. They even followed us to the bus and thanked us over and over for stopping by. 

We then might have opened 4 or 5 or more, bottles of wine for the trip home.

This was my first try at hosting a bus trip. Already the ladies are asking to go again. Someday that might just happen! It was so much fun. I must say the bus driver was wonderful! I love that guy.

On Thursday I had to make up for lost time. I first made drapes for Angie (I mentioned her above). There are two panels and I  lined them. I can't wait to see them on her french door.

I finished this in less than 2 weeks. It's a signature quilt for my niece Callie's wedding. The day before the wedding I will iron freezer paper on the back of the off white. That should  stabilize it for signing.

Remember the blacksmith/bus driver?  He made up for lost time too. He made his first saj. Someone customer ordered it a week ago at the Heritage Festival. It is used over an open fire,  for baking a bread similar to a pita bread, only thinner. Yes they bake the bread on the inverted side.

That's our week. It was fantastic. How was yours?

Life is Good!