Stitching again.

We've been home for a week from our trip north. It takes a while to get chores caught up and back in the swing of home life. So I had not yet gotten my sewing machine out to do any piecing or quilting. Truthfully, I did not feel like sewing; I am always pretty tired after those trips and just a little blue. This time, with the stuff we brought home--the old sewing machine, various collections of my Mom's, the clothing that I plan to use for future projects--I was a bit more so than usual. So I was dragging my feet to get to sewing.
Which is completely silly! I always feel better after I finally get motivated and start pushing fabric bits under the presser foot. So after a morning of pinning and cutting for several of my old projects that are next to move to completion, I got the Bernina out.
First I made a couple of happy scrappy houses for a fellow HMQGer. She is planning a king-sized, double-sided quilt made with these cute little houses! (She needs 400 houses! She may be crazy!) I admit that they are pretty darn adorable and pretty fun to make. I may have to make a few for myself.





I am ready to assemble the last quarter of the postage stamps; the wonky stars are nearly a top; the centers are pinned in place for the Dresden plates. More on these later when there is real progress to report.
I also did some thinking about what I may do with my Mom's and Dad's shirts. I got cut the shirts cut up ready to do something with. For some reason, cutting the buttons off these shirts kind of bothered me. But it is a process, isn't it?
I like a few of these ideas and am eager to start working on them.

Home again

Shug and I are back at home after our car trip to the midlands to see our Moms. We are getting back to the normal routine and getting a little rested.

I haven't driven through Kansas in years. Now before any of you say anything, let me just say that I Love Kansas! My soul lives in Kansas. Many think that Kansas is flat and boring. Yes, it is pretty flat, but it is not at all boring. The winter wheat was ripening and being combined. (The furrowed fields gave me ideas for my next quilting project.) I looked and looked at those miles and miles of wheat and tried to describe the color; it is kind of a reddish amber, sort of the color of a deer's coat. Then we drove through the Flint Hills. Earlier in the year and earlier in the day would have shown the rolling prairie off to better advantage, but it was still just beautiful.



We brought home quite a bit of stuff from my Mom's house. Her old Kenmore sewing machine, for one. I learned to sew on this machine; it was my first machine as a young bird just out of the nest. I haven't yet tried to see if will sew--it looks like it needs quite a bit of attention (I hope that rusty place will clean up.) But I am glad to have it here. I also got some bobbins and buttons and old irons.





And I brought home a stack each of my Dad's shirts and my Mom's shirts. Dad's shirts are mostly polyester and I don't look forward to sewing with them, but I saw a project on flickr that used linen with polyester fabrics. I am hoping that the addition of a some rich linens will give some stability and depth to his old shirts. There is quite a bit of polyester in Mom's stack as well, though hers are slightly more "cotton rich". The prints are pretty loud. I may add some solids, but then again, maybe not. It will be a real heart-tug to work with them but I am looking forward to quite a few projects from these shirts.

Pictureless Tuesday

I am visiting my Mom, so away from the home computer & unable (read, don't know how) to upload images from my iPad--so no pictures today.

I am uncomfortable when conversations linger too long on me. I am not good at receiving compliments. So I am VERY ill-at-ease with the attention I am getting for Skirting the Circle. I am completely humbled & staggered by the very, very nice things people are saying about it. Thank you all so much. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I am not resting on my laurels though. I am thinking about my next finishes. When I got to the quilting of the last quilt, I posted requests for help and suggestions. I got some excellent advice and support.

But one suggestion kind of stung.
Bobbidink suggested that I take some classes, add to my tool box. In my reply to her, with my pouty lower lip implied, I said I've been quilting for years, taken free-motion classes, walking foot classes. I know HOW to quilt, I just didn't know WHAT to quilt. But the more I thought about her kindly meant comment, the more I wondered if I have a tool in my toolbox that I don't use, can I really say I "have" that tool? Perhaps not.

I have three finished tops, four more near completion. With these nascent quilts I am going to experiment--free-motion, walking foot, hand quilting. I am going to do something new! (Well, new to me.)

Thank you Bobbidink for your valuable comment. It hit home and, I hope, will make me a better quilt maker.


Addendum: I don't want anyone to misunderstand. I was a little hurt by Bobbidink's constructive criticism--at first. But she said to me exactly what I needed to hear! I did a lot of self-examination and saw that I was being a bit lazy, doing the same things over & over again. I am nervous, but I am now ready to push my boundaries. There may be some dismal failures but I know I will grow as a quilt-maker.
Again, my sincere thanks Bobbidink!

On to the next thing!

It is done!!!
I have to admit that I am pretty pleased with this quilt. I want to thank EVERYONE who has supported me along the (long) way from blocks to completion of this quilt. If I had not gotten such good feedback, I might have let this languish as a WIP for much longer. But now it is done and here it is--



For those who don't know its story, this quilt began with a circle skirt of my Mom's from the 1950s. Back in my young and slender days, I used to wear this skirt (with a blue T top, I think) and I always got lots of comments when wearing it. I have carried it around with me long since I was able to wear it, for what reason, I don't know. A couple of years ago, I was going through my sewing room stuff and was *this* close to passing this skirt along to another person who loved vintage clothing when I stopped and decided to cut it up. The angular print seemed to ask to be 'calmed' with a circular pattern. A recent binge of solid fabric purchases provided the mustard and blue; a root through my stash brought out the solid (the back of a polished cotton) and the plaid-ish greys. The blocks were quickly pieced. And they remained a stack of blocks until I first put them on flickr. I got LOTS of support and urgings to finish it, so the blocks were moved from the back burner. I set the blocks together, added the line-segment extensions and quilted and quilted and quilted.
Again, my very sincere thanks to all who have held my hand along the way. I am so grateful.

I've decided to call this quilt "Skirting the Circle".

Shoulder to the wheel, nose to the grindstone.

Why do I always have to exaggerate?!?

But this has been, is still, a big job. A while back, I blogged this diatribe-ish screed about not liking when people calculate the hours spent to make their quilt. Well, in true do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do fashion, I have calculated approximately how long the quilting will take: at X minutes per block times 42 blocks, that's Y minutes!, divided by 60, that's Z hours!!! But, I will keep the totals to myself. (Manda, you are sworn to secrecy!)

Anyway, I am 6/7th done. I hope to have an image of a finished quilt by the end of the weekend.




For fun, Shug and I saw Stitched this week. It is a locally made, independent documentary about quilting, quilters, quilt shows, competitive quilting and I highly recommend it. Specifically, it follows Caryl Bryer Fallert, Hollis Chatelain and Randall Cook. We see a bit of how they began making quilts and the creative process that goes into their quilts. The film is made at the International Quilt Festival here in Houston and at the American Quilter's Society show in Paducah, Kentucky. There is quite a bit about traditional quilting versus art quilting, apparently something of a controversy--who knew! I particularly liked seeing all three of the featured quilters and their quilting process, since that is something I am struggling with right now.
If it is showing near you, see it. Or you can buy a dvd from their web site. Or do both!

Being prepared.

Today is the first of June, the first day of Hurricane Season. Six months of Hurricane Season.

It is time for we coastal residents to take stock of our stores of batteries, flashlights, radios, water, non-perishable food; time to get all the photos and important papers all together; time to evaluate what is essential and what is non-essential. Basically, what is essential is what I've listed above: what you need to survive, photos and documents, and your loved ones. Everything else can be replaced. Once I left my house believing that it would not be there when I got back and while it was a wrenching experience, it was also freeing. I am not so attached to my 'stuff' anymore. Don't get me wrong, I would be devastated if my beloved quilting room, my machines, my fabric (my FABRIC!), my quilts were all lost, but I would survive.
So now we are beginning to go through our stuff--we are low on D cells, need some more canned tuna and refried beans, some more water isn't a bad idea, need to keep the liquor cabinet well stocked. I'd like a battery powered fan and I would like to see about getting hurricane shutters for the second floor windows; I don't like Shug being on a ladder, nailing plywood over them. A can of gas for the generator, plenty of brickets for the grill. And a simple quilting project for my hand-crank Singer, that should help pass the hours when the wind is howling around the house and the days after the storm when the power is out.
I think we are pretty well set.

This is going to take a while.

The Weakest Link

For me, it is my quilting.
I have utmost confidence--even a little vanity--about my ability to choose fabrics and colors and to assemble them together in a pleasing way (well, pleasing to me). But things bog down after I sandwich together top, batting and backing. I would have to say that my quilting is merely utilitarian and mostly pretty boring. With practice and a willingness to experiment (though just a bit!), I would say it has gotten a *little* better, but I have much room for improvement.
My opalescent quilt that I made in 2007 was the first time that I combined machine with hand quilting. As you see, my stitches are pretty big. This was also the first time that I used variegated thread and I really liked the results.



So that led to a second quilt with machine quilting in the ditch combined with hand quilting. As you see, a formula is developing!



Then I went a little nuts and decided to do a whole quilt by hand. This quilt has been 'under construction' for about 2 to 3 years now--though I am getting very close to being finished! (My history has always been that things come to a screeching crawl or stop when I get to the hand work.) Again with the variegated thread.



The little quilt I made for the HMQG Project Park challenge was quilted by machine. Nothing innovative here, just overall quilting following the pattern of the patchwork. But look, no ditch stitching!



I made a little sister to the opalescent quilt. I was going to follow The Recipe, but some of the hand-dyed fabrics are done with sheeting and hand stitching through them was like sewing through stainless steel, so I opted to do it all by machine. But again--in the ditch with element outlining. I am starting to even bore myself!




The galaxy quilt that I just finished is all outline quilting. The "edge-y" thing with this one--I did TWO outlines! WOW! And the trouble with doing outline quilting with the machine is that there is lots of twisting and turning of the quilt, lots of stuffing the whole quilt through the little arm of the machine, and aching shoulders when you are done.



Now my current project: the mustard, blue and grey circle skirt circle quilt. And what am I doing? Well, machine quilting in the ditch, of course! I think I want to add something more, but I am not sure what. Outline the box-y elements and black lines? Add some areas of 'grid' like the background of the main fabric? Or just let the fabrics speak for themselves? I am open for suggestions. Please.

Help me Obi-Wan, you're my only hope.

As I quilted this, the Star Wars scene where Luke Skywalker is being taught by Obi-Wan Kenobi to 'trust the force' by having him sword fight a bobbing orb--blind-folded!--kept coming to my mind.

Black machine quilting on black fabric--I felt blind-folded and had also to 'trust the force'! It was pretty grueling! And not something to just work on for a while, until I came to a good stopping place, and take a break. There were no stopping places! It is One Long, Continual Line! Well, except for a shorter bit in the middle, but the outer quilting line is all one. The only breaks were when I ran out of bobbin thread.

I am being dramatic; it really wasn't *that* bad. But I do feel I earned this one.

It seemed like a good idea at the time....

black machine quilting on a largely black quilt. Well, I *think* it will be a dramatic quilt, that is if I don't loose my eye-sight in the process. The good news is that because it is SO VERY HARD TO SEE, it is very forgiving and the quilting mistakes are hard to see as well.

 

 (Please ignore the cat hair.)

Spinning wheels.

And I don't mean my Dresden plates!

I am at an in-between place with all five of my on-going projects. After getting several quilts quilted and bound, I was in the mood to do some more quilting, but the 2 projects closest to being ready to quilt--the black and brights geese and the circle skirt circle quilt--both need something special before I move ahead with them. For the geese, I need black batting (will order it from Connecting Threads) and the circles need a border of either charcoal or pepper. I hope where you live you have a LQS that carries lots of Konas and Bellas, but none of mine do. The best place for me to get solids is from the chain stores, but they just carry the basic crayon box colors, nothing as 'subtle' as dark grey! So again I will have to order. The Dresden plates have been on hold cause I was stumped as to what to use for centers, but I was very pleased to have solved that problem with nothing more than a root in my fabric stash. These smudge-y tan dots seem to make all the plates happy--and me too!



I got my row done for HMQG. This month I brought home Sabrina's batik spools. I haven't done anything with my batiks for a long time, so it was fun digging through what I had on hand and putting together some pretty pairs. I had forgotten how nice it is to sew with batiks--and I love the way they smell when they are ironed--so waxy! Sabrina, this will be a wild and luscious quilt!




Then I started organizing my sewing room--storing and stowing and putting things away and I came across these buttons. Early in our days of getting to know each other, I asked Bryanna to look at her Walmarts for some buttons I couldn't find at mine and if they had any would she get one of each for me. Well, she showed up with $40 worth of buttons--which I have yet to do anything with! She said anyone who spent $40 on buttons was a kindred spirit. Occasionally, I get them out and just play with them. They are so pretty, prettier than gold coins, and more valuable--to me--because they represent the beginning of a friendship!

Believe it or not it's just me.

How was your weekend? Mine was pretty good and I hope yours was too.

Saturday morning, I did one of my exercise dvds--for the first time in a long time. And while my abs and shoulders ache now, it felt good to get my body parts and blood moving again. In the afternoon I went to the HMQG meeting. FUN! After the business-y part we had show and tell: several members brought swaps they had recently received--doll quilts, make mine modern, home goods. All were amazing! There were some robins, Bry got hers from me and has now taken it out of rotation as it is HUGE. I got Sabrina's batik spools to work on this month. A surprise was presented: Safieh's wedding quilt! And I think we really surprised her! She and Charles will be married this week--Best Wishes to you both! Then we showed off the things we made for Project Park. They were are beautiful and all so different. Yay us!

On Sunday, Shug and I went out on our bicycles. The weekend weather was lovely, cool and low humidity (well, for Houston). We had a nice little tour.

Then I spent much of the afternoon in my sewing room. I have 5 projects going right now: there are the 2 black thread projects (brights and black geese and the circle skirt quilt), 2 white thread projects (indigo floating stars and purple wonky stars) and a grey thread project (peachy plates). Now I usually tend to hop around--a LOT--between projects, but not wanting to change thread all the time made me focus. I had the black thread on the machine, so I finished the geese top and am nearly done adding the lines to the circle skirt top. And I am LOVING how these are turning out; actually I am loving how all of these projects are turning out. Do you ever work on something and it is going along so well and looks so awesome that you can't believe that YOU are making it? Well, that is how I am feeling right now. I am looking at these things and I can't believe they are MINE!

Now I know I have a Process Pledge button over there on the side and I have let you in on the progress--up till now. I want to keep these under wraps until they are done for a big reveal. ;-)

What is better than an ATTAGIRL?

An ATTAGIRL from a friend!
Bry at A Blond Quilts is an amazing quilter and blogger and my IRL friend and she recently passed along to me the the Stylish Blogger Award! {internet hug} Bry--until I can give you a real hug!

With the receipt of this award you are asked to do several things:
1. Thank and link back to the person who gave you the award.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to 6 newly discovered bloggers.
4. Contact these bloggers to let them know they have been nominated as Stylish Bloggers.

So, 7 things about myself? Let's see...Audrey, Pippa and Louis are the 8th, 9th and 10th cats I've had in my life; I have a lovely collection of vintage wedding cake brides and grooms that I have not been able to display for several years now because Pippa began taking them down from the shelf. Fear of breakage caused me to put them away; Shug and I sail a Hobie Wave, a little 13 foot catamaran. It is lots of fun. And I think I might want a kayak this summer; I am becoming far too interested in vintage and antique sewing machines--but come on, we don't want all the old machines to end up as window dressing for AllSaints stores!; I've never dyed my hair (I like my grey!); just over a year ago, my Mom went in to a nursing home for what they delicately call "memory care". She still knows her immediate family but is increasingly confused. I really miss her; and lastly, Shug and I are married because of quilting: in 1991 (OMG! 20 years ago this fall!) I came to Houston to my first Quilt Festival. While in town, I phoned an old friend from college days who I knew had recently joined the faculty at a local university. Well, 14 months later, we were married and I was a Houstonian!

Now the 6 blogs I am awarding as Stylish Bloggers:

RachaelDaisy at Blue Mountain Daisy--Rachael is an amazingly talented quilter! Her career as a floral designer shows though in her brilliant (in every sense of the word) patchwork.

Ara Jane at you know what I love?--I just discovered this blog about quilting, knitting, baking, reading and gardening. Ara Jane's tone is so sweet and intimate she makes me love what she loves.

Sherri Lynn at daintytime--Sherri Lynn is famous for her Passage Quilts; they are as beautiful as they are touching and meaningful. She talks about life, creativity and shares her quilting skills with tutorials. I really want to try making my own Mod Mood Quilt.

Dan at Made by a Man: Sew What--Dan is a master of both precise (check out his Lone Star made with 1 inch strips!) and improvisational piecing and he takes his readers along through the process in a helpful and personable way.

Jenny at Sew Kind of Wonderful--Jenny's blog (one of two--the other is about long-arm quilting) is about quilting and life in general. She is developing a ruler that I am very eager to see--the quilts she has made with it are amazing!

And nifty quilts--I love the joyous quilts I see here. There isn't a lot of writing but lots and lots of beautiful quilts!

Enough with the Reptiles!

Gemology and Quiltroversy

I have a BS in geology (*please* don't ask me when I graduated!) and while I was in school I once was a teaching assistant in a class called Gem Stones (aka "Rocks for Jocks"). It was then that I saw all the color varieties of garnet with their bizarre names; they range from olive to bright green (uvarovite and tsavorite), from orange to brown (hessonite and spessartite), from deep red to purple (pyrope and rhodolite). When I saw what my fellow members of HMQG were doing with Bryanna's row for our robin, it was these garnets that came to mind. She requested wonky log cabins in plums, greys and navies with an accent color that would pop. Well, amazing rows have been made! I was afraid that I would not get the chance to add to it, but Bry let me add one more row. (I am probably the last person who will get to work on it--it is HUGE now.)



It is now ready to go home with its owner. Bry, I think you need to make an appointment with Jacquie for some time on her long arm.


Then I just want to say this about some things on the blogs lately:

I really dislike labels. They are often used only to exclude people: I am {fill in the blank}, but you are not. We are all quilters. I don’t care if your stars are wonky by choice or by accident, if your fabrics are bright and contemporary or muted and country, if style is traditional, modern, art, or whatever. I also don’t care if you are working on your first quilt or your one hundredth. We are all quilters! Not everyone’s work is going to appeal to all. But we can be kind when we express our dislike or disagreement. I truly believe that unkind words lead to unkind behavior.

It is hard for me to imagine an activity that seems less likely to attract harsh words and hurt feelings than quilting. But there have been quite a bit of both on the quilting blogs and flickr images lately. There have been several topics going around, thoughtful replies have been made but there have also been some rather stinging comments. I have carefully considered adding my opinions to some of these, but in the end have chosen not to. When someone asks me what I think, then I will tell her or him; until then, I am sure no one cares. It would only be for vanity’s sake that I would add to the long strings of comments, so I am just going to keep quiet. In my early days on internet, I did sometimes comment on some pretty innocent stuff and was often misunderstood. Somehow misunderstandings seem easier with the written word than with the spoken word.

Some may think me weak or naïve or Pollyannaish for not wanting to jump into the debates. But I feel like there is enough arguing and finger pointing in the world today without doing it about a pastime I am passionate about. 

You can call me Finishy McFinisher!

After finishing my Project Park for HMQG, I was kind of on a roll--finishing-wise.

With the walking foot on the machine, I quilted two small quilts, then got the binding on them. And now they are done! It really feels good to have 2 UFOs off my to-do list!
This one will just be added to the growing collection of small quilts at our house. It is made with leftovers from my brother and sister-in-law's quilt. Since I rarely follow patterns I often cut more than I need when I make a quilt and can get 2--and sometimes more--quilts from one cutting session. A sort of 'cut one-get one'.

I just finished this one 



with leftover HSTs from this one.



The second quilt is for our neighbor's new baby, due to come home this week. Yay! This is another little quilt made from leftovers. In this case, the original was made for my cousin's first son. He will be 12 this October, so these parts have been laying around for quite a while.



Here is a snapshot of the earlier quilt with dachshunds marching around the border.



Next on my quilting program is Bry's row for HMQG. (How is it that the 3rd Saturday seems to be coming so early in the month?! We meet next week, so I have to get this done!) Now, I did cheat a bit and 'robin ahead' with her row--I already have 2 squares done. Her colors are so rich and beautiful that this one is a real pleasure to work on. Pippa has made some suggestions with coordinating snakes!



And an interesting, non-quilty side note. I've been trying to get back in the habit of exercising, so yesterday between laundry and cleaning and binding, I got in a walk on our neighborhood green belt. There is a bar bell-shaped oval, about 2+ miles long with a 'water feature' in the middle (I call it a drainage ditch, others call it a bayou.) In wetter times, it flows, but we are in the midst of a drought and it now is more standing than flowing. But it usually has quite a bit of life around it: turtles, herons, egrets, I even saw a roseate spoonbill there once. Yesterday I saw a small alligator! It was about 2 feet long, but would have been longer if it had all of its tail--it looked like a sawed-off alligator. In spite of being small, its mouth was probably the size of my hand! CHOMP!

I LOVE this quilt!

This quilt is called "Two Brothers" and was made by helen richards quilts.

It breaks the mold of the row-by-row, block-by-block quilt. The large, rectangular pieces let the interesting fabrics and the rich, vineyard-like palette come to the front, but the fabrics and colors are not working by themselves here. It took a good eye and a deft hand to assemble them in a way that is both calming and exciting. The rich, dark solids are enlivened by the sparkling prints and the piecing is at once improvisational and controlled.
The construction seems to have been done in 3 wide and 2 slender bands, going the width of the quilt, using both wide and narrow strips--a perfect way to really showcase the beautiful Japanese fabrics. The coral and olive and purple and turquoise of the prints really sing next to the forest and navy, plum and grey solids. The overall impression is that of peaking through a window at a beautiful scene outside.
It is hard to get a feel of how this quilt is quilted. Because of its size, it may have been done simply--though this quilter is known for her excellent free-motion quilting designed to uniquely enhance each of her quilts. In the case of "Two Brothers" perhaps the best quilting was just 'in the ditch' letting the amazing patchwork and beautiful fabrics shine!

 

My challenge from this quilt is to experiment with large fabric pieces in a non-block format. This style of quilt would be perfect for those fabrics I am reluctant to cut. I would also like to play with this rich palette--I don't think I have ever used as many dark colors as are in this quilt!

Please find this quilt in my flickr gallery I LOVE these quilts!.

Whose room is it anyway?

Many of us share our homes and our creative spaces with someone else--room-mates, partners, spouses, children, pets. Mostly for better, sometimes for worse.
Many of us, too, have had those moments when we return to a project that was left out in an unfinished state only to find it altered by our beloved. With luck, we will do a Marge Simpson growl, grab the camera to document it, then precede to right the wrong.

Then there the other times.

I've had a few of those over the years. There was the vest I was making back in the day of vests. It was nearly completed and hanging on a hangar on the doorknob when Shug, who had been eating chips, walked by and picked it up to examine and leave behind greasy fingerprints. There is the triangular tear in my 'opalescent quilt' that I am pretty sure Pippa made. The quilt was hanging on the wall and she is the cat who tends to think that the laws of gravity shouldn't apply to her. There was Louis' first weekend in our house. He had yet to use the litter box, not used to the flushable litter we get. I was watching him closely when I saw him get into the chair where I had left the pin-basted quilt I was hand-quilting. At first I thought how cute, he is going to curl up on the quilt. Then I realized he wasn't going to sleep on the quilt, he was going to pee on it. I had to let it dry so that I could hastily machine baste it, get the pins out and get it into the washing machine.

This weekend something that has happened before--so I really should have known better--happened. I had left laying out the parts and partially assembled pieces for Lily's Quilts Dresden plate QAL. At 7:30 in the morning they were fine, but when I went back into the room at 9:30 I discovered that one of the cats had ralphed all over them. Now those of you have cats know that they puke--they puke quite a lot. And like I said, this has happened before--having to wash out quilt pieces in the sink, scrub down the table. But my cats tend to let a long time pass in between 'events' so that I let my guard down.

No fooling...

I finished something!!!
I finished the HMQG Kate Spain's Central Park charm pack challenge!!!!



Happy April Fool's Day!

Meet the Machines

My workhorse is my Bernina 1230. I bought her in 1991 at my first Quilt Festival. I can't believe that she will be 20 years old this autumn! That was the most considered purchase I've ever made--I test sewed everything! At that time, computerized sewing machines were new and I wanted something I could grow into. The thing that really sold me on this machine was the presser foot knee lift--no one else had that at the time. It was a big purchase, but I've never regretted it. My recommendations for anyone buying a new sewing machine would be to shop, shop, shop then buy the best machine you can afford. I look forward to many more years with this machine.



And she was my only machine until 2007. That year, mon amie Odile, came from France to stay with us during the Quilt Festival. She had become quite a collector of machines a coudre. We were emailing in advance of her trip and I said how I always look at the Singer Featherweights but never get one because I didn't feel that I knew enough to be a smart shopper. She said she had just bought one (her second one) in the UK and would bring it to me as a gift. Well, I just cried! It was and remains one of the most generous gifts I've ever received. Encore, merci beaucoup, Odile! This past summer this little machine was my only machine while the Bernina was in the shop for 4 weeks. The little Featherweight is another workhorse and I love her as much as my Bernina.



Then in 2008, we had Hurricane Ike. At our house, we were only without electricity for 4 days and during those 4 days, I really didn't have the leisure to sew. But I swore that I would get a non-electric machine so that I could sew through the next (and we will have another) hurricane. So in spring of 2009, I got my Singer 99K hand-crank. She was made in Scotland in 1901 (I think) and is such a beautiful machine. You don't want to do complicated sewing with her as you are guiding your fabric with one hand while the other powers the machine! I have a simple zigzag top nearly completed with her help.





And now the newest member of my sewing machine fleet: my Singer 66 Lotus! Oh my goodness, what a BEAUTY! She is another hand-crank. Born in 1918, I'm not sure where (I just brought her home this evening--I need to do more research). What happened to the aesthetic that produced such lovely tools?!? Even as late as the 1960s, sewing machines would have some sort of pretty, scrolling decals. But early machines had beautiful, painted floral motifs, sometimes even inlaid shell! I guess now you can get 'clings' to 'pimp' your machine, but somehow it just isn't the same. Anyway, I think this machine is just jaw-droppingly gorgeous! I may not do much sewing with her, but so what! As I said before, she is BEAUTIFUL!!!