Free Motion Mavericks - Week 311 - All But Finished

So nearly finished, but it will have to wait until tomorrow.  This morning I thought I would finish the cushion cover by lunchtime.  After lunch I thought I would have it done before daylight failed.  As usual, the work took me about four times longer than I thought it would.  There were a few problems along the way, which I should have expected.  The highlight of the day was making the buttonholes.  Now the only thing I have yet to do is sew on the buttons.

This is all I had left of my favourite skirt, just a few scraps which are now in the bin.

Tomorrow I shall be buying a new cushion pad, and shall put the new cushion cover on as soon as I get it home.  I can't wait to see my favourite skirt RIP in its new incarnation.

Here goes for Week 311:-

Many thanks to Frédérique for linking up last week with her Santa in the Woods.  If you haven't seen her blog post yet, nip over now and see more.

 

If you have no free motion quilting to show, feel free to link up and show any project you like.  Here are the usual rules, but feel free to ignore them.  To keep the original emphasis, however, preference will be given to free motion quilting when featuring projects from the previous week.

If you love free motion quilting, whether you are a beginner just taking the plunge, or you have reached the stage where you can do ostrich feathers with your eyes shut and still achieve perfect symmetry, then please link up.

Remember, FMQ is FMQ, whether your machine was made last week, or it is older than your granny.

Here are the very easy and slightly elastic rules:-

1.  Link up with any recent post, ideally from the last week but within the last month, which features a free motion quilting project, whether it is a work in progress or a finish.

2.  Link back to this post in your own post.

3.  Visit as many of the other participants as possible and say hello in the comments box.

4.  The link up will remain open for five days, from midnight to midnight GMT for the long weekend, Friday to Tuesday.

So far quilters from the USA, England, Wales, Australia, Canada, Germany, Holland, New Zealand, France, Macau, Russia, Ireland, Brazil and Sweden have taken part.  The 

first participant from each new country will get a special mention the following week.

A Little Sleeve

Every project gives a bit of entertainment value.  Turning sleeves into towers is a bit of a novelty.  This is the second sleeve for a baby jacket.  The cable is a trick for keeping track of the rows.  Every time I twist the cable, I know that is a row where I need to increase for the sleeve shaping.  Just going round and round in the same direction takes some getting used to.  When I was knitting the first sleeve I made a mistake and ended up undoing about half an inch of knitting.  It took me hours.  It is just as well the satisfaction outweighs the frustration.

Free Motion Mavericks - Week 309 - Paisley Leaves

Leaves are always my favourite design, and these fanciful paisley leaves have been a pleasure to quilt.  No two are exactly alike as I tried to vary the middles. 

I have now finished all the quilting.  It is a rough and ready job as I had some bulky seams to contend with, and I have ended up with a few rumples here and there.  I shall give it a good pressing under a damp cloth to see if the bumps flatten.  Even if they don't, I expect being regularly sat on should sort them out.

Now that I have filled all the space, the colours look perfect in our dining room.  I had been wondering who I might give the finished cushion to.  Now I have decided that this project is going to stay here at home with us.

 

Here goes for Week 309 :-

Many thanks to Chris for linking up last time with her Ripple table runner.  If you haven't seen her blog post yet, nip over now and see more.

 

 

If you have no free motion quilting to show, feel free to link up and show any project you like.  Here are the usual rules, but feel free to ignore them.  To keep the original emphasis, however, preference will be given to free motion quilting when featuring projects from the previous week.

If you love free motion quilting, whether you are a beginner just taking the plunge, or you have reached the stage where you can do ostrich feathers with your eyes shut and still achieve perfect symmetry, then please link up.

Remember, FMQ is FMQ, whether your machine was made last week, or it is older than your granny.

Here are the very easy and slightly elastic rules:-

1.  Link up with any recent post, ideally from the last week but within the last month, which features a free motion quilting project, whether it is a work in progress or a finish.

2.  Link back to this post in your own post.

3.  Visit as many of the other participants as possible and say hello in the comments box.

4.  The link up will remain open for five days, from midnight to midnight GMT for the long weekend, Friday to Tuesday.

So far quilters from the USA, England, Wales, Australia, Canada, Germany, Holland, New Zealand, France, Macau, Russia, Ireland, Brazil and Sweden have taken part.  The 

first participant from each new country will get a special mention the following week.

Free Motion Quilting Meets Recycling

Can you see where the original stitching ends and mine starts?  My old skirt is now well and truly unrecognisable, and well on its way to becoming a cushion cover.  I have enjoyed making it up as I go along.  The original stitching has had some stitching here and there, just a bit of outlining to batten it down, and now I am off on a frolic of my own to fill up all the blank space.  Doing all the fat fancy paisley-like leaves has been an absolute joy.  However, it has been heavy going in parts because I have had to contend with seams in the skirt fabric, and have ended up with a few rumples.  Also, because the backing fabric is a synthetic mix, it has a tendency to resist, and refuses to glide as easily as pure cotton.  Of course, as soon as I type this, I realise I have forgotten to put clingfilm on the bed of the machine, which is my tried and tested trick to help the work glide more freely.

It is ages since I did a free motion project.  What better way to start again than with an old skirt backed with offcuts of curtain lining?  Shopping isn't easy at the moment, so I am taking the opportunity to use up items that are cluttering up the house. 

Free Motion Mavericks - Week 307 - Picking Up The Threads

At last, I am getting back to a neglected project.  This is my old skirt, which I cut up and prepared for quilting.  Actually, I'm not sure about the quilting part.  I think it might not need wadding, being a fairly thick woollen fabric, but it certainly needs to be attached to a backing fabric, so that means plenty of free motion designs to fill the gaps.

I have always used Gutermann's Sulky Cotton 30 for free motion quilting, but I have got two or three reels of Cotton 12 in my box.  When I did my last landscape I bought a supply of stout needles, and it occurred to me that they might be ideal for the thicker thread.  The two reels on the right of the photo are Cotton 12, and just from the photo you can see how much better they show up against the background.  It's raining (again!), so today is a good day to stay in and start experimenting.

It's time I started some serious sewing again after all that knitting.

Here goes for Week 307 :-

Many thanks to Deana for linking up with her wonderful scrappy Trail Mix quilt last time.  If you haven't seen her blog post yet, nip over now and see more.

 

 

If you have no free motion quilting to show, feel free to link up and show any project you like.  Here are the usual rules, but feel free to ignore them.  To keep the original emphasis, however, preference will be given to free motion quilting when featuring projects from the previous week.

If you love free motion quilting, whether you are a beginner just taking the plunge, or you have reached the stage where you can do ostrich feathers with your eyes shut and still achieve perfect symmetry, then please link up.

Remember, FMQ is FMQ, whether your machine was made last week, or it is older than your granny.

Here are the very easy and slightly elastic rules:-

1.  Link up with any recent post, ideally from the last week but within the last month, which features a free motion quilting project, whether it is a work in progress or a finish.

2.  Link back to this post in your own post.

3.  Visit as many of the other participants as possible and say hello in the comments box.

4.  The link up will remain open for five days, from midnight to midnight GMT for the long weekend, Friday to Tuesday.

So far quilters from the USA, England, Wales, Australia, Canada, Germany, Holland, New Zealand, France, Macau, Russia, Ireland, Brazil and Sweden have taken part.  The 

first participant from each new country will get a special mention the following week.

A Picture for Sunday - Grazing in Gossamer

 Really magical gossamer appears occasionally in autumn.  One afternoon earlier this month it carpeted every field for miles around, and shone against the sun.

Odd Jobs

Irritating odd jobs tend to get put off, sometimes indefinitely, or forgotten.  This week I decided to clear three out of the way.  First, a transformation, of a denim skirt that my daughter grew out of years ago.  All it needed was a length of old picture cord, a seam across the bottom...

... and now I have a brand new peg bag.

Next came a repair job to a cardigan.  The petersham inside the front edges was disintegrating, so I had a rummage through my bag of green scraps and found two strips of cut off selvedge in exactly the right shade.  This was a minor miracle in itself.  It is years since I kept strips of selvedge.  These days they go straight in the bin.  The strips were long enough to bind the front edges and make the cardigan wearable again.  It had got to the stage where I was nervous about putting it in the washing machine in case the buttonholes came out ruined, but now it is repaired it can have its long overdue wash.

And finally, a tie-back for a curtain.  This curtain hangs between the kitchen and the dining room, and is only closed in the winter when it gets draughty in the evenings.  We don't want to put a hook in the wall because the plaster is a bit old and fragile, so I have made a strip to wrap around the curtain.  At one end there is a buttonhole and a button, and at the other end, two buttonholes.  

I sewed a button to the curtain...

... buttoned the tie-back onto it, wrapped it round, and the two buttonholes at the other end go over the two buttons.  Easy.  Why didn't I think of this when I made the curtain ten years ago?

Seamless Cardigan

My first seamless cardigan is finished!  I used my usual cardigan pattern in fisherman's rib, and added an extra stitch where the sleeve and side seams would usually be.  Knitting the sleeves on three needles and the whole cardigan on four was pretty hair raising at times.  By the time I put the whole thing onto two needles, once I was approaching the neck, it was getting quite heavy, but very entertaining with the sleeves dangling down.  It was all worth it for the rapid finish once the button band was knitted - no seams, just a little gap to stitch up under each arm and a few tails to weave in.  

It was fun using spotty buttons again, and this time I used orange thread to match the orange streaks in the yarn.  It should fit my granddaughter Emilia when she is about 12 to 18 months.

xxx

Free Motion Mavericks - Week 305 - A Weighted Blanket

Stretched out on my daughter's bed in all its lumpy glory, the weighted blanket looks colourful but slightly odd.  Because it is so thick and heavy it can't be folded, so it has to be stored rolled up.  It ends up creased and lacks the soft and cosy visual appeal of a quilt.    

Every pocket contains a weighted pad, and the total weight is approximately 9 kilograms.  Being of a certain age, I had to convert all the measurements to imperial, which conveniently worked out as approximately 20lbs.  With the blanket measuring 6ft 6in x 4ft 6in, I calculated that it needed about 2 and a half ounces for every 6 inch square.  A single pad doesn't feel particularly heavy, but once the whole blanket is rolled up it is like carrying a small sack of coal.  I tried it out, just lying under it for a couple of minutes, and felt as though I was being crushed under a board, thinking that if I slept under it it would give me nightmares.

Last Friday we visited my nephew and his family in Berkshire to deliver the blanket to them, so they could arrange for it to be passed on to my niece and her husband, who live in Surrey.  It reached its destination on Sunday.  Yesterday my niece gave me the first progress report on how her husband's night had been - 3 hours of uninterrupted sleep, the best he had managed for ages.  Of course I was pleased that the blanket seemed to be having the desired effect, but also aghast at hearing how badly he has been sleeping.  As expected, the request has now been made for another pocketed cover, but in a more manly colour scheme. 

Meanwhile, all the nursery prints have been a great hit with the family.  My niece is on a nostalgic roll, remembering all the pyjamas and nighties her granny used to make.  Altogether, I used seven fabrics left by my sister in law's mother, and two left by my mum.  The blue flowers on a white background made up most of the back...

... but I needed a large piece of a different floral fabric for one corner.  When we were at my nephew's house on Friday, his 7 year old daughter immediately recognised these flowers, and produced a doll's coat made by her great granny with this fabric for the lining.  It was wonderful using up all these scraps and keeping them in the family.

Here goes for Week 305 :-

Many thanks to Chris for linking up with her flower appliqué mini quilt.  If you haven't seen her blog post yet, nip over now and see more.

 

If you have no free motion quilting to show, feel free to link up and show any project you like.  Here are the usual rules, but feel free to ignore them.  To keep the original emphasis, however, preference will be given to free motion quilting when featuring projects from the previous week.

If you love free motion quilting, whether you are a beginner just taking the plunge, or you have reached the stage where you can do ostrich feathers with your eyes shut and still achieve perfect symmetry, then please link up.

Remember, FMQ is FMQ, whether your machine was made last week, or it is older than your granny.

Here are the very easy and slightly elastic rules:-

1.  Link up with any recent post, ideally from the last week but within the last month, which features a free motion quilting project, whether it is a work in progress or a finish.

2.  Link back to this post in your own post.

3.  Visit as many of the other participants as possible and say hello in the comments box.

4.  The link up will remain open for five days, from midnight to midnight GMT for the long weekend, Friday to Tuesday.

So far quilters from the USA, England, Wales, Australia, Canada, Germany, Holland, New Zealand, France, Macau, Russia, Ireland, Brazil and Sweden have taken part.  The 

first participant from each new country will get a special mention the following week.

Out For A Walk

Doesn't she look snug!   Meet Emilia, all wrapped up in the blanket from very proud granny.  She is now just over three weeks old, and looking at the photos and mini videos that we have received, she is making wonderful progress - taking in the world with wide-open eyes, smiling and chatting.

The parcel that I sent contained three items; the elephant quilt, the cardigan with spotty buttons, and this blanket.  

It was a great way of using up left over oddments, not only from babies' garments, but also from cardigans I have made for myself.  The overall effect is fairly riotous, and should keep Emilia busy when she is learning her colours.

Many of the baby yarns were in random colours.  I really like the shades of blue in this photo.

The pink in this photo is definitely Emilia's colour.  We have received lots of photos of her looking delightful in pink.

I am hoping that we can visit in The New Year, as soon as travel restrictions are lifted.  I have already got two cardigans, in the the next two sizes up, set aside for her.  I am looking forward to life returning to normal, not new normal, but normal normal, and actually kissing and cuddling our first grandchild.  It can't come soon enough.

Free Motion Mavericks - Week 303 - Elephants

One pink elephant in the middle of a cradle quilt turned out to be just perfect for a little baby girl.  This is the quilt that I have sent to Ireland for my grand-daughter Emilia, who has now reached the grand old age of 11 days.

As you can imagine, I have been slightly distracted over the past few days.  Because we can't make firm plans to go and visit yet, I have been eagerly awaiting photos every day.  Already I can see her growing, getting a little fatter in the face, and looking at the world with wide open eyes.

As for sewing, I have finished the weighted blanket this evening, so I should be able to take some photos of it tomorrow.  Making 35 all white weighted pads was monotonous, and has left me yearning for a colourful project.  No doubt I shall think of something soon enough.

 

Here goes for Week 303:-

Many thanks to Gail for linking up with her elephant quilt.  If you haven't seen her blog post yet, nip over now and see more.

 

If you have no free motion quilting to show, feel free to link up and show any project you like.  Here are the usual rules, but feel free to ignore them.  To keep the original emphasis, however, preference will be given to free motion quilting when featuring projects from the previous week.

If you love free motion quilting, whether you are a beginner just taking the plunge, or you have reached the stage where you can do ostrich feathers with your eyes shut and still achieve perfect symmetry, then please link up.

Remember, FMQ is FMQ, whether your machine was made last week, or it is older than your granny.

Here are the very easy and slightly elastic rules:-

1.  Link up with any recent post, ideally from the last week but within the last month, which features a free motion quilting project, whether it is a work in progress or a finish.

2.  Link back to this post in your own post.

3.  Visit as many of the other participants as possible and say hello in the comments box.

4.  The link up will remain open for five days, from midnight to midnight GMT for the long weekend, Friday to Tuesday.

So far quilters from the USA, England, Wales, Australia, Canada, Germany, Holland, New Zealand, France, Macau, Russia, Ireland, Brazil and Sweden have taken part.  The 

first participant from each new country will get a special mention the following week.

A Very Important Parcel

Guess who!

Yes, our first grandchild, Emilia Rose, was born on Sunday evening in Dublin to our son Ally and Leah.  So of course we are instantly besotted, cooing over every photo, and in fits of amusement at seeing a beautiful newborn baby girl who is the image of her dad at the same age.  Mum and baby are doing well, and arrived home from hospital yesterday.

So now you know why I have been knitting even more than usual this year!

I posted a parcel to them yesterday, which should arrive with them late this week or early next week.  Until it arrives, the contents remain secret, but I think there's an easy clue in the photo. 

A Picture for Sunday - Tyntesfield Through A Rainbow

For once I caught a rainbow before it faded.  This photo was taken on the 1st October, when I spotted a rainbow while I was in the kitchen.  I took a mad dash round the corner to the field nearest our house, took a few photos while the rainbow still had a wide arc, and then it shortened.  That was when I tried a zoom shot across the valley, and got this shot of Tyntesfield looking like Fairyland.

1914 Singer 99K

Once in a while I am asked to find a machine for someone who wants one.  A few weeks ago my friend Kate asked me to find a machine for her friend Claire, and put me in touch with her.  It was agreed that I should look out for a Singer 99K, so after drawing a blank at local charity shops, I looked at Ebay.  As always, there was plenty of overpriced rubbish.  Unfortunately, many sellers think old machines are valuable just because they are old.  That's not the way it works, as explained here by Helen Howes.

After going through the list on Ebay several times I decided to bid on this machine.  I could tell it was the same as my 1916 99K, so would be a very similar age.  The photos even showed the serial number, but the focus was slightly fuzzy, so I misread the first 5 as a 6.  The machines were not quite so close in age as I initially thought.

When I checked the number on the ISMACS website, I found out it was made in the second half of 1914.

It was interesting to see that at this early stage of the First World War, the machines were not yet marked as being manufactured in Great Britain.

Other differences I noticed between this machine and my 1916 99K were that it has a nice bit of decoration on the handcrank...

... and a more simply decorated but nonetheless beautiful faceplate.  After I had polished it it was so shiny it was difficult to photograph.  I had to turn the machine around to avoid too many reflections.

When I collected it, the machine was grimy and dusty and hadn't been used for years.  The seller, Graham, told me that it had belonged to his grandmother, and the family had had the machine for as long as he could remember.  The last person to use it was his father, some time in the 1970s, to put in a trouser zip.  Despite lying idle for such a long time, it turned well, and Graham was pleased to know that I was going to get it working again.

Once I got the machine home I started work on it.  I usually start by cleaning out all the dust underneath the slide plate and needle plate.  Cleaning up all the metal took a couple of days, during which time I also did the trickiest job, loosening the stitch length knob.  After that it was plain sailing.

The covering of the finger that pokes between the spokes of the wheel had worn down to bare metal.  My husband produced a piece of leather, which very conveniently already had holes in it, so I cut off a strip and tied it round the tip.

I needed to send off to Helen Howes for just two parts, a new tyre for the bobbin winder...

... and a catch for the base.

Once it was cleaned and oiled,  I threaded it up to test the stitch, and found it has two little quirks.

The tension spring, directly above the tension discs, lies flat against the machine, whereas ideally it should be about an eighth of an inch clear of the machine to allow for easy threading.  Despite this it threaded easily, just by holding the thread against the machine and sliding it under the wire.  I was glad I didn't have to try bending it outwards and risk snapping it.

The first hook that the thread passes through is slightly angled towards the right.  This means that the thread has a tendency to jump off the hook when winding the bobbin, but the problem is easily solved with one finger.

The compartment at the side of the machine was full of old odds and ends - rusty pins, blunt needles, a broken ruffler attachment, a couple of razor blades...  This is what is staying in

there for Claire - three original bobbins, a seam guide (the most useful attachment ever), three old needle packets, and spare needles wrapped in the old silver paper that the razor blades probably came in. 

                            

Finally, I had to clean the case.  The front was just a bit dusty.

However, when I wiped the back with a damp cloth the varnish came away because it had been reduced to powder.  It had probably been too near a sunny window for too long.

In fact, the varnish had remained like a shadow underneath the handle.  I gave it lashings of beeswax, which the wood readily absorbed, and which showed off the grain of the oak veneer better than on the front.

Now for my husband's contribution, the lid of the compartment.  On the left is the lid from my 1916 99K.  The corner is damaged, possibly by being dropped onto a hard floor.  In the middle is the lid from this machine, which had worse damage to the same corner.  I asked my husband to repair it, and he got as far as replacing a little piece of veneer, before he decided that it would be easier to make a new one.  He found a piece of oak in his shed, cut it to size, shaped it and stained it, and put on the knob and catch from the damaged lid.

It's a perfect fit.

Yesterday Kate visited to collect the machine to pass it on to Claire.  I put this machine and mine on the table side by side to see if she could work out which was which.  It was like comparing non-identical but very similar twins, but she could see that this machine was cleaner, and I could tell that it turned more smoothly because it was freshly oiled.

Most important of all, it sews beautifully!  Graham was happy to see it go to a good home, and Claire will have hours of pleasure getting to know her brand new 106 year old machine.