Indepence Day Clean-a-bration!

One of the things on my To Do list earlier this week was to clean and prep my new Singer 301a. I figured that since I was going to work on this one, I might as well open up the first one and make sure everything was in working order with both.

Here is the first one.



And the new one.



I cleaned the upper gears on both machines and everything was running pretty smoothly. I also cleaned up the bobbin area.

New machine -



First machine -



I went through quite a few cotton swabs and clean mascara wands and I used the lubricant to grease all the gears again.

I oiled everything well and put the first machine back in the cabinet and tested out the new machine.





She was quite dry and will take a few more oilings before I think she will run more quietly. I'm going to stick this one in the basement to use to piece on while I am quilting. Last night, I prepped the basement for a spot to set it up and later tonight, I am going to cut out fabric for another quilt to piece in between quilting passes on the Avante. Woo hoo!!

To Do post...

I have so many things to get done, but work certainly took over for the last week. We are at our year end and I worked on Saturday from about 7:30 AM until 8 PM with only a couple of hour long breaks. And I was online until 11:30 Sunday night doing the same. Thankfully, I got a huge portion of work finished and it is making this week much easier in the office!

I thought that showing the things that are in progress at home might help me start working on them.

I still have this quilt on the frame. The thread ran out but the replacement was received last week. I just need to finish the last couple of rows.



I'm still working on the Easy Street setting triangles.



I need to get this new to me machine testing and cleaned up and set up in the basement to do some piecing.



I need to cut out this quilt.



I need to bury threads on this quilt.



I need to get this quilt quilted and bound.



And I need to get this quilt started. I printed out the parts up to 9, but there are 3 more parts after that.



Thank goodness for a holiday this week! Next weekend will also be dedicated to quilting and not much else!

Some excitement!

Yesterday, I had a delivery.



Lula was very intrigued by the package. And the bubble wrap!



And here was what was inside.



Another Singer 301a with a carrying case and the cords and that is it.

I haven't tried it out yet, but the wheel moves by hand easily and everything else moves as it should. The cord is different from my first 301a - the foot pedal cord and power cord are all one piece. And  this one was born in 1953 in Anderson, SC. My old one was born in 1954.

Here she is out of the box.



After the excitement, I did a little piecing on the first 301a and the foot pedal went berserk. I had to take both foot pedals apart to figure out how to fix the broken one. Once I got it back together, I have much more control over the speed. Before I fixed it, there were 2 speeds - off and ZIPPY!

I also organized another quilt to cut out. I might get to that tonight.



My plan with this new 301a is to make up a little sewing area in the basement so that I can do a little piecing in between passes on the frame. I found that if I take little breaks here and there, it can save my back while quilting. Since there is always something to work on, I might actually make progress on some tops!

Design Wall Monday - 5/27

This weekend at Regina's for sewing, I brought my Singer 301A. I love using this machine at home (when I was actually sewing) and figured that it would be easier to tote to the attic for sewing than the Janome. I was right! And she has been a joy to use all weekend.



So far, I have put a binding on a quilt, made the piano key borders for Moon Pie and pieced a lot on a new quilt. I am pretty sure that this will be my new traveling machine!

Saturday night, I cut out five fabrics for the new quilt I started - Sweet Treat, a free pattern from Judy L. Yesterday, I cut the rest of the fabrics and pieced all the blocks.



I added a row to the quilt to make it a little larger and I think that I am going to change the pieced border to make it a little easier to piece and finish. After I got the blocks made and on Regina's design wall, I got the sashing on 4 of the 7 rows.



This is really coming along nicely and I might just be able to have the center part finished before I leave!

See what is on other quilters' design walls here.

Design Wall Monday - 1/7 and Easy Street Link Up

I spent all weekend working on the Easy Street mystery and catching up on shows on my DVR. I feel very relaxed and ready to tackle the work week now! Of course, you may need to ask me on Tuesday if that feeling has stuck with me! ;)

I still have to cut out the green parts, but I have made great progress on steps 1 through 4. And part of 7.



I may not be able to get back to this until after I get a couple of quilts quilted. My fingers are crossed that one of the thread orders I placed last week are delivered today! There is a guild meeting tonight that I might be skipping if the thread is delivered today so that I can get home and get to quilting.

I have really been enjoying the Easy Street mystery and I love the reveal so I am excited to keep stitching on my parts, but things will have to be put on hold as the quilting comes first.

I have done my piecing on Shirley the 301a and she is a work horse! I still don't think that I have figured out how to control her speed with the foot pedal. She is either not stitching or zippy zippy.



I have been stitching the rows together on Moon Pie as well as my leader and ender.



See how others are doing with their Easy Street on Bonnie's Monday Link up post.

Max even spent more time upstairs with us girls this weekend than he has done in a really long time. They were all exhausted from watching me stitch and press and stitch some more!

Design Wall Monday - 12/31

After my trip north on Saturday for Shirley, the Singer 301 (it's a really great story and I encourage you to click on the link to read about it and see all the pictures!), I really wanted to spend all day yesterday being crafty and creative! I had a bit of cleaning to do, some knitting (the sock and a ruffle scarf), piecing (borders on Scrap Squad #6 and Easy Street Step 1), quilting (one on the frame and load another), and I got the heat resistant material to re-cover my big board. I ended up jumping from project to project a lot!

I did get the big board re-covered. You may remember that shortly after receiving the big board at the 2011 quilt retreat in Shipshewana, someone (ahem, Barb!) cut through the cover. "Accidentally!" I put a patch on it and the patch has been coming off for several weeks so I decided to re-cover the board. I just removed the old cover, left the layer of batting, added another layer of batting and smoothed the heat resistant fabric over it. It didn't take too long at all, but I am afraid that Barb is not allowed near it with a rotary cutter now. :)



I did sew quite a bit with Shirley, the 301. I sewed the strip sets for Easy Street Step 1 in about 15 minutes and that was with loading a bobbin. She sure is zippy! And I got the sets pressed and about half cut down into sub units.



I made the binding and cut and attached the borders to the 6th Scrap Squad. I can only show the binding. I need to get this quilt loaded and quilted so I can post about it and be done with Scrap Squad... I do still need to make the backing, but there is all day tomorrow for that!



After the Scrap Squad work, I went to the basement to do a load of laundry and work on quilting. Wouldn't you know it... After going through part of one bobbin and trying to load up more, I ran out of the bobbin thread. I have another cone on order, but I could have sworn that I had a back up cone of this color. I guess that it just wasn't used as much in April when I went to the IQF show as the other cones that I did get. Or I already went through so much of it that I used the partial and another entire cone. Oh well, the quilting is on hold until I get the new cone because the quilt is so big that I am not removing it and trying to reload it.

And this means that I will have to do nothing but piecing on New Year's Day. I will probably spend most of my time on the Easy Street mystery and piecing on Shirley!

In between cutting the strips down, I threw the Moon Pie blocks on the wall. I should be able to get this assembled this week. I need to throw up the setting triangles and the border needs to be pieced. It is a piano key border and all the parts are already cut out.



Max is very excited about all the things that I did get done yesterday! Well, not really. He wanted off the bed. lol

Stash Report Week 52, 2012

I'm still in the black! I'm still in the black! I'm still in the black!!

Last night, after I picked up the new Singer 301 (Shirley, I think!)....



.... I stopped at Joann's and got border and backing fabric for the last Scrap Squad quilt.



I was hoping to come home and work on the finishing the top and making the backing, but I was too excited about the new machine! I was also straightening up the studio and when I came across the machine oil, I decided to oil Shirley. There are a lot of places to oil!! Do you see all those little arrows?



I also picked up some more heat resistant fabric to recover my big board.



And I got a couple of skeins of this ruffle yarn so of course I had to try it out. I'm still deciding whether I like it or not.



And this past week was Christmas and my wonderful BFF Regina got me a fantastic quilt kit!! Literary Lounger with the Bookish fabric line from Connecting Threads. She splurged for me and now my stash report is taking a hit! lol I love it, Regina!! Not only do I live books, but the colors of this line were made just for me!



I'm still in the black! I'm still in the black!

Fabric added this week: 14.63
Fabric added YTD: 145.40

Fabric used this week: 0.00
Fabric used YTD: 173.88

Net Fabric Used: 28.48

Lula thinks we should play with fabric today and I wholeheartedly agree!!

I need another name....

Last night, I was checking Craigslist for vintage sewing machines which has become a daily ritual over the last 2 weeks since watching Quilt Cam where Bonnie Hunter mentioned finding machines in her area on the site. If you recall, I had great success in searching for a Featherweight and she still remains nameless, although I am still leaning towards Laverne.

Anyway, last night, I expanded my search for some reason to Lima, Ohio and came across an ad for a Singer machine in a cabinet for $100. I half heartedly clicked on the link and my heart stopped. It was for a Singer 301A and the machine looked wonderful and the cabinet... *gasp*

I sent an email response asking if they still had the machine since it was listed almost 3 hours prior to my seeing the ad and who wouldn't want to already have the machine? I sent emails to Kristie and Beth and Regina and asked if I was crazy (I think Regina was the only hold out for a NO vote. lol) and I got encouragement to stalk the seller and call as well.

This morning, I got a few more pictures of the machine and accessories and made plans to drive up to get it. I was lucky enough to run into a neighbor when I got home and he carried the cabinet and machine to my second floor for me. And I had to do some finagling to make room.

Before...



And after...



I was thinking at some point this week that the room seemed a little cluttered and I think that moving the hope chest out and this smaller piece in will make a lot of difference. :)

The finish on the cabinet is almost like brand new! The finish on the front of the cabinet is not as shiny as the rest of the cabinet, but it looks great!



All of the accessories!!





And a storage stool!



I had to clean out the bobbin area a little and adjust the stitch length, but the tension is perfect! And she purrs! Absolutely PURRS!!



The cabinet has a place for the foot pedal to be a knee pedal, but it is too high for my short legs so I put it on the floor. :)



I can't get to the serial number, but the ad said she was from 1956. The way that she is connected to the cabinet, I am going to assume that the 1956 year is correct. :)





And now, I have more machines than dogs again! Lula just wants to be able to sit in the chair all the time.