What a difference love makes...

Love for what you sell, I mean. In this case, love for the Featherweight. Yes, my irresponsible spending arrived today:)
In comparison of my first FW which was supposedly "serviced" but took a lot of effort from my side to get it really serviced, cleaned and working, this is a dream. You wouldn't believe the excess packing. An email with unpacking instructions, a pdf with the machine's manual, an extra spoolspring..You name it and Judy from www.singersewinginfo.co.uk took the effort.
This FW "purrs". Although I dislike cats and will not have any purring in my vicinity, I like to make an exeption here.
And yes, I am so thrilled with this service that I'm going to show ALL the pictures.
Just saying, so anyone who's already bored can click away and look at blogs that have elaborate quilts to show.
I'll skip the outer ánd inner cardboardbox...

 

 At this point I considered a coffee break...

 She has the scrollplate..

 it's a Centennial

 I really like her!

Judy even replaced the spoolpin with a cardboard one (the original was removed to prevent any damage), wrapped the table extra and sticked a clear rubber dot to the screw that touches the table.
The footpedal came in a velvet pouch which I will keep:)

Luckily I'm having next week off to play. First job is to sew another bag/dustcover.

It happens  i use more and more "difficult" words (for me)  in my blogposts My dictionary seems to be my best friend. I am considering to stop writing in English. Often I'll have to change sentences to simplify and can't exactly say what i want to say. In Dutch it would be só much easier to express myself.

Old stuff

Everytime i come across a pic like this, I start drooling. I like the old sewing stuff.
A while ago I started searching in my own stash to see what i had for myself. I've inhereted my Mom's old sewing box that my dad made for here before they got married.
I even have a pic of my Mum sewing with the box in front of her!
The pic of my Mum is a bit tiny, but all i could do was either this or a blurry replica.

The sewingbox was a good place to start searching for old stuff and I found lots:)
Luckily Ikea provided shadowboxes and now these are in my sewingroom

 O jeah, blogger typical started flipping pictures again Grr.
In the embroidery hoop (that was mine when I was 8 or 10) there's a wooden thingy that looks like a seamripper. It is, in fact, a very tiny chrochet like hook, used for mending those ever so valuable and scarce panty stockings, just after WW2.
The bigger wooden darning thing was from my MIL. She was always keeping up appearances and that thing was for....mending gloves. Very typical for her to have!

Remember my HUGE pinking shears? Fits exactly next to the wooden chrochethook case. I have found more and will need another shadowbox!
Nice thing is that i now can enjoy my old stuff every day instead of them being tucked away in a box. In real life it looks nicer than on a flipped pic; you'll have to take my word on that:)

A trip to the goodwillstore brought me an old iron that's a perfect bookend.

..and I found my own childhood/play beige Singer Sewhandy sewingmachine again. Yeey. She get's along perfect with my Featherweight.

 

Speaking of which..the latter seems to multiply when you are websurfing instead of quilting. After i irresponsably (did i spell that right?) spent money I got a letter from my boss about the financial crisis. In short: the company is not doing well and they are going to cut my already poor wages. Luckily (or unfortunately, that depends...) the letter came áfter my money spending spree.
More later when I recieve my impulsively bought item...

Outcast

 Since yesterday..

It's white, it's freezing, it's cold. Co-workers talk about how pretty the world looks, how great it'll be when the ice 'll be thick enough to skate etc etc.

I keep quiet and will "patiently" wait untill it's all gone again. I'm an outcast: I hate snow.

2013

For 2013 too.

Happy New Year!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HST magic :) (lots of pics!!)

There are many tutorials on the web for making hst fast and easy. Here's one that'll give you 8 hst in a few minutes. I did not come up with this one and don't know who did, I just want to share...
First you start with 2 squares, one colour for one half triangle. Mine are Christmassy red and white.

Put them on top of each-other and draw 2 diagonal lines and sew on each side 1/4" from the line. So far nothing new.

Then cut: 2x diagonal, 1 horizontal and 1 vertical like this:

Press them open and cut them to the exact size (mine are 3 1/2 ") The precision trimmer by Martha Mc Closky is an absolute wonderfull ruler for that!

And tadááá...8 perfect hst's

Ah, the possibilities!

Unfortunately we need math. Don't worry, it's simple:   

 

              (A+1/2")x2=B

Meaning: A is the unfinished hst and B your starting square.

My hst is 3 1/2". Add 1/2" makes 4". x2 makes 8. So my starting square B was 8".

For safety I added another 1/4". If you are just as accurate as Harriet Hargrave you need not do that.





 Now what to do with these? Make a Christmas pillowcover that's easy to put on and off your cushion!
Sew your block of choice together and put a piece of thick fusible fleece on the back and quilt it if you want.

Then the back. Same hight as the pieced block but for the width, cut a piece that's approx. 1 1/2 the size of the pieced block.

Cut that piece in half

Make a seam on the cut edges

Put both pieces on top op your block, right sides together, overlap in the middle

Sew the overlap to secure it and then sew all the way around.
Sew a lockstitch all around to prevent any fraying.

 Turn, put a cushion in the pillowcover and enjoy!

Time for Christmas

My opinion about stitcheries was that it's rather lame and oldfashioned. Probably due to the "jolly"season, I did make one though :) And found it fun to do as well. Who would have known..haven't done any embroidery for over 30 years or so. I just started with no knowledge whatsoever to hinder me.

(found the pattern at red-brolly.com)

But now that it's done, i don't really know what to do with it. Shall i frame it?? Make a pillowcover??
Problem with the latter is that I ran out of large pieces of solid red fabric and ofcourse solid red is the only option I want. I found a piece of somewhat darker red and I guess that'll have to do. No fabricshops in the neighbourhood that sell solids and no patience for ordering online..Besides, i would never get it in time for Christmas anyway.

(Mmm, looks brighter in the picture than in real life...)
Weighing the options, I took a break to surf the net mindlessly and i read this post. Just what I needed! Let me share:

I rest my case.

Odd jobs

According to my dictionary, i have been doing "odd jobs", meaning that i am my own handy(wo)man.
Never heard of the expression, but truth is that i have been very busy doing all sorts of things that had to do with my toilet, bathroom and kitchen. After 26 years things needed a upgrade. Real renovation was far to expensive, so I put my painting clothes on and went to work!
New wallpaper above the tiles (no, we don't have tiles from floor to ceiling), a chandelier in the toilet (!) and new shelves there too.Painted the spaces between the tiles (is "pointing"a correct word? Grouts?) so now they're white again, scrubbed the same things on the floor. Those are grey again instead of black

Repeat in the bathroom

What needs to be done is finding a suitable towelrack and new bathroom cabinets. Hang the mirror and put all the stuff back. Gone are dirty tilegrouts, black fungusspots between bath and wall and old/worn out accessories. Today I finished another job: putting a blackboard sticker on a kitchenwall. Tricky, since the decall was 53x2.00 mtr. It turned out fine and I immediately wrote all sorts of stuff on it. Never knew that actual writing on the wall was so much fun to do *lol*

Inbetween i helped DS moving from one studentdorm to another ánd managed to play with fabric.

I had fun making some wonky dissapearing 4patch blocks. The result reminds me of kitchentowels:)  I think I'll make some more; it absolutely needs more red.. It'll have to wait though. First we are celebrating "Sinterklaas", the Dutch equivalent of SantaClaus (actually the other way around...), i'm going on a househunt with Quilting DD, Christmas is near (decorating!!) and much more.
Only 3 more weeks 'till my Christmasbreak..pfffff....!