Since March I have been working on a quilt to commemorate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. At about the same time a new topic started on Quilting Board, the Patriotic Challenge, started by a couple of Canadian ladies who were looking forward to Canada Day in July. The idea was that we should all encourage each other on our patriotic projects. Because of all the hand sewing I have been doing, my project is taking months, but the end is in sight! Having been abroad twice in the past few weeks, I didn't want to fall behind with the project, so on each occasion I took my sewing with me. A couple of appliqué flowers were blanket stitched in Spain, and the pine cones and some acorns and oak leaves were blanket stitched in Poland. Because we were so close to the Czech border I took my sewing with me on a trip we made there and did five or six quick stitches on an oak leaf in a Czech car park.
The ladies on the Patriotic Challenge all thought it was a great lark, and then a voice piped up from Indiana. "Why don't you do some stitching in the Pub?", followed by another from Canada saying "Yes, and take pictures to prove it!" So here's a picture. A couple of pints for the lads on Saturday afternoon, and a lemon tea and the chair with the Union Jack cushion for me. A very relaxing little sewing session.
This picture was taken on 21st August, and already it seems like a world away. Wadowice is the birthplace of Karol Wojtyla, Pope John Paul II. This beautiful baroque church on the main square is dedicated to the Virgin Mary and is where the late Pope was baptised. Local knowledge is so valuable when on holiday. When we arrived in Wadowice, cousin Bogusia headed straight for the cake shop, famous for selling the Pope's favourite cream cakes. The cake revived us after the drive, giving us plenty of energy to visit the church and the museum. We will return one day. By then the road works in the main square should be long forgotten, so I should be able to take decent pictures of the church without having to point the camera to the sky to avoid the clutter.
Last year I joined the Quilting Board forum. It's a wonderful website for quilters, with lots of discussion about vintage sewing machines, quilts, cookery, life in general and more quilts. One of the forums they run is a monthly doll quilt swap, where everyone is allocated a partner and you make each other a little quilt. So my first effort at a doll quilt was shoved into an envelope to fly across the Atlantic, and look what I got from Bonni!
It's a lovely cut out appliqué which she edged with hand stitching - blanket stitch, what else! And it was pure coincidence that she sewed an extra embellishment in the centre. There was definitely a bit of quilters' telepathy going on. Bonni's quilt now hangs on the wall in my sewing corner and adds a lovely cheerful splash of colour. Thank you Bonni! It's interesting being on Youtube and blogger, because you can see where in the world the viewers are and which websites have links posted to the Youtube channel or blog. This was how I discovered Quilting Board, by tracing back the link from Youtube. Now with this blog I can see where in the world the views are coming from - this country, USA, South America, Europe, Russia... Also I have found links to lots of nice jolly blogs and interesting websites about sewing, fabrics, art, sewing machines... and there are some sites where I can't work out what the connection is at all.
What is a doll quilt? Well, it is just a miniature quilt. Here is the first one I ever made, and you will recognise it as the project I had on the go when I did the demonstration video to show the use of the seam guide. Until I made one I never saw the point of making a miniature quilt. Perhaps I had been scarred by my experience in needlework classes at school, where we were expected to make a miniature skirt, complete with darts, zip, waistband, finished seams etc etc. What a complete waste of time, all that work on a fiddly scale on a skirt designed to fit someone 14 inches tall. Needless to say I did a total skive on that one. My time was fully occupied with a Spanish blackwork tablecloth, French verbs and drawing cross-sections of buttercups. Anyway, I had a whale of a time making this little quilt. The top was made in dress-weight cotton poplins on the Frister and Rossmann TS, and the quilting and binding was done on the 1927 Singer 99K hand machine. Once I had finished the binding I was pleased with the passable mitred corners, then looked again at the quilt and saw that all the black around the border made the middle look empty.
The solution was a bit of decoration in the middle, with black ribbon, tiny beads and pearl buttons. A bit of hand sewing saved the day.
The seam guide is a marvellous little gadget. I wish I had known about them earlier. My mum never had one, and they were unheard of at school, so I never tried one out until I started acquiring old sewing machines and finding extras in the compartments or drawers. Now I'm totally hooked. If you are doing patchwork and need to a quarter inch seam allowance, the seam guide is ideal. It is a lot more reliable than the method I used before, which was to stick a piece of white tape on the bed of the machine and run the material along the edge of the tape. The seam turned out fine, but getting the adhesive wiped off the machine afterwards was a bit of a bore. The machine is a 1937 (more or less) Frister and Rossmann transverse shuttle. It sews beautifully and weighs a ton. I love it.
We were rummaging around Bogusia's bookshelf and my husband pulled out a paperback for me. It was filled with line drawings showing dressmaking techniques, embroidery stitches, crochet, knitting, macramé and everything else you might expect to see. Then on page 201 I stumbled on the project so many people have been searching for - How to Make a Car Cosy. Well it can't be that hard, can it? Just two little illustrations and a page of explanation packed to bursting with zeds, you can just work it our for yourself. It's a loose cover for a settee only a slightly different shape. Just think of the possibilities. Why stick to a boring olive green waterproof fabric? Go for the English country house look in floral chintz with a ruffled valance, or be sophisticated and use a regency stripe with box pleats and piped seams. Otherwise, try a more updated version in 1970s oranges and pinks, or a children's special with appliquéd passengers waving from the windows. We told Bogusia she and I had to get busy on her machine the very next day. I still can't understand why we never got started. Next time you are scouring second hand bookshops, look out for Roboty i Robotki na Zimowe Wieczory by Stanislawa Podgorska, published in Warsaw in 1979. A must for your vintage bookshelf.
Here is the view inside the cabinet of the Lucznik machine. I expected to find the treadle wheel - seeing the treadle cable lying idle at the right hand side of the machine was a bit of a give away. But once I opened the cabinet door, the hunt was on. Where was the treadle pedal? Totally puzzled, I got my head down to the floor and looked underneath the cabinet. No, nothing there. My husband thought I was being exceptionally dense. He could see straight away that the entire panel at the bottom of the cabinet was in fact the pedal. I didn't think there was enough clearance at the sides and the back for it to move freely. I was wrong, of course. A quick try with my feet soon proved that it had a lovely smooth movement. Perhaps next time we visit I might persuade cousin Bogusia to try sewing with the treadle, but I think she is a confirmed electric girl.
