Trish Got a New Car!

A few months ago, we bought a new car SUV for my wife.  She was driving a mini van that was 12 years old and had a lot of miles.  We decided to trade it in and get her something a little smaller, as two of our kids have moved out of the house and we really don't need room to seat seven anymore.

So, we got her a Ford Escape.  She loves it.  The only time I've driven it was to test drive it for about 10 minutes before we bought it.  It's hers and she drives it, and frankly, that's fine by me.  She cares for two young boys during the day and she has a few car seats in it.

We usually drive my car when we go places, but back around Christmas we took her vehicle to her dad's house and when I was taking out the car seats I noticed this...

Dried gunk from the bottom of little feet!

My first reaction, I'll be honest, was to say, "You need to tell those boys to keep their feet OFF of the seat backs!"  But as I was taking the car seat out, I realized that it was nearly impossible for them to keep their feet off of the seat back in front of them.  Their car seats have a "lean" that puts their feet out in front of them in such a way that it would be impossible for them to put their feet "down".

So, I decided to fix the problem.  (That is something us guys do, you know, we FIX things... HooRaa!)

So, I dug out an old Jelly Roll of Blues to match the new Car!!!  

Some of the Blues in the Jelly Roll... I forgot to take a photo of the Jelly Roll!

And this is what I did... 

Sewing on my FW.

Panel all sewn, and ready to be cut again!

This was the first project I did completely on my Vintage Sewing Machines.  I used my 221 Featherweight, and part way through the project, I bought a 401A and another 221 (which I had to "test drive").

So.  After a lot of trial and error, I finally finished them, and installed them in Trish's new ride last night...

          

Now that I have that project off my board, I can focus on a few others... I have Bonnie's GIMQ to work on, Jonathon's graduation quilt (can you believe he is graduating and going to college!), one project which shall remain a secret and I have to make some blocks for my Exchange Group.

Thanks for reading!!

Until His work in me is complete,
Paul

Adelle... Stradivaro Blues

Look what the UPS Man brought me today!

A Box... That says, "FRAGILE".

The UPS man delivered today...

And INSIDE that box... An ugly case that has been made even uglier by adding wood print contact paper!

Wood cases are nice.  Fake wood cases are... Well... Not so nice.

She was well packed, all tied down with industrial plastic wrap, trust me she wasn't going to move in there.  Having an old machine shipped to me made me a little nervous, but they packed her well and she made it in one piece!

Tied down with industrial plastic wrap and bubble wrap.

Upon seeing this machine, I knew I wanted her.  She was lonely in the midst of a bunch of old Singers that were drawing all the bidding action, nobody wanted the blue Stradivaro, so I got her for $5.95.  Yep, SIX Dollars!!  It cost me more than three times that to ship her, so all in, her total cost was $28.98.  I have paid more than that for paintings that adorn my walls, so even if she never sewed a stitch for me, she's a nice piece of art for a shelf, so how could I say no!?

All unwrapped and ready for inspection.

"Stradivaro" must be Japanese for "Singer" because she looks just like a Singer 15-88.  If she were black and the badges removed, I guarantee people would think she was a Singer 15-88 with an odd faceplate and back gear cover.  Her faceplate is striped, not scrolled like the 15-88, as is her back gear cover.  (I can't believe how blatantly companies will copy another company's product!)

Her faceplate is striped, not scrolled, but
in shape and size, it is identical to a 15-88!

I will need to build her a table in which to sit so she can be used, and her wiring needs to be completely redone.  I almost didn't even plug her in to test her functioning, but curiosity got the better of me, though I was a bit nervous about the possibility of electrical shock.

Bare wires in places, tape over wires in many places.  This was just
not pretty.  Not the worst I've seen, but pretty darn bad!!

But, she runs great, she sews, and I have done nothing to her yet.  Once I clean her up a bit, put a new needle in her, and make some adjustments, I am sure she will sew a fine stitch.

She is clean as a whistle!! Even her undercarriage is clean!

Light is nice and bright, though I will likely replace it with an LED version.

The only real messy part about her is the motor.  I'll take it apart when I
rewire her, but for now, she'll be shelf decoration.

I have decided to call her "Adelle" because every time I see the badge, "Stradivaro" I think of the famous Stradivarius Violins, and music.  Adelle sings the blues, and this little gem is most definitely blue, so she shall be christened, "Adelle".

I will clean her up and polish her soon and I'll post some photos when I do.  The rewire job will be fun... I hope!

Until His work in me is complete,
Paul

Quilt for my Niece... We finally celebrated Christmas!!

About a week after Thanksgiving my Sister in Law called and asked if I would sew a quilt for my niece if she bought the fabric.  I, of course, said I would love to.  About an hour later I got a call from my Brother in Law... They were at the store and were picking out fabric... The next day, I had their fabric in hand and it was time to design a quilt that would work with what I had to work with!

I am normally NOT a pre-washer, but this fabric needed to be pre-washed.  So, I had a new experience...  I read a few posts on pre-washing and tossed the material into the washing machine in a zipped pillow case with Color Catchers.  This is what I had after that washing!

After washing the fabrics in Pillow cases with color catchers!

After untangling and pressing those fabrics!
They look so much better this way!

I had three colors to work with, so I went with a simple diagonal step pattern.  I did some quick calculations and grabbed some markers, some graph paper and started to sketch. 

After sketching the pattern, I identified how many of each piece size and
color I would need.  10 8"x4" and 20 4"x4" pieces.

Once the pieces were cut, the pattern made sewing them together a breeze.  This is a very quick and simple quilt to put together.  Just what I needed for a short order Christmas gift!

With only three colors and two shapes, assembly was a breeze.
Yellow to Pink, Pink to Blue, Blue to Yellow and start again.

String piecing at it's finest.  The top half of every block,
done in one long string!  Gotta like that!

After pressing the first pieces open, it was just a matter
of matching the next top in line to the next bottom in line.
Again, Easy Peasy.

This is how I keep pieces organized when I am working on several projects
at once.  Each project, or each portion of a project gets its own clear bin.
I like the clear because I can see what's inside.  (Mikaila's Quilt on the left,
Step one of the GIMQ in the middle and Step two of GIMQ on the right.)

The next day I retrieved the blocks from their box and pressed them open.
NOTE the iron... Do you "Set Your Seams" before pressing open?
I was taught to do this and you will always get a MUCH
cleaner seam when you do!

Once pressed open, they all get layed out
on the floor to insure I got 'em all right.
Looks like I did!

This is how I organize my assembly.  Those little pieces of paper are
marked A1 to A7 (Left Row), B1 to B7 (Center Row) and C1 to C7 (Right Row).
I carefully pick them up in reverse order, C7 to A1.

Then I sew that label right into the seam
and then I can fully assemble the quilt
without ever laying it all out again.

Assembling the quilt, and you can see the tags, helping me stay organized.
After the entire flimsy is complete, I remove them.

So, another reason I am so far behind on the Mystery Quilt this year, but it was so worth it.  I had to wait until now because we couldn't celebrate Christmas until January 3 because of sickness.  So here it is... And here she is...

All smiles... LOVE to see this!

And this.  Cuddling with her Mom while
snuggled in her quilt!

She has Thanked me for it several times already.

I'm Glad you like it Mikaila!

Now to get to work on posts about what I have been doing with GIMQ...

Until His work in me is complete,
Paul

Quiltville Mystery Quilt 2014 - Part ONE again...

Well, a few weeks ago, I posted about starting Bonnie Hunter's Mystery Quilt.  I took off and then was quickly sidetracked and derailed by other projects.  A Baby Quilt, another gift quilt which I can't reveal until next week, and yet another gift which I can't reveal until next week, and another that I can't reveal until March!!

So What CAN I reveal?  Well, when I saw step ONE of GIMQ (Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt) I realized I was going to need to sew many, many HSTs.  I have heard many times before that the best machine to sew these on is an old Singer Featherweight.  I have one, in fact, I have had it for over a year, but it didn't work.  

It needed some work before I was going to be able to sew on it.  She barely moved when turning the fly wheel.  Her motor seemed to have plenty of power, but her drive belt was frail, and she was bound up.  SO, I decided to work on her so I could use her to complete the GIMQ!

So, I pulled her out of her ragged old box, and identified the things I NEEDED to order to make her operational.  Her power cord was in horrible condition.  Her rubber feet were non-existent, and she was filthy dirty!  I had one old rusty bobbin, and her felts were in horrible condition.  So I ordered all new parts to replace what needed replacing.

Last Friday, I received those parts.  Bonnie also released her next clue in the GIMQ, which included... yep... More HSTs! so I was motivated and equipped.  I must say, the internet is a wonderful place!  I found YouTube videos galore, and a Facebook group dedicated to Singer Featherweights proved to be invaluable in getting me the resources I needed to take my little hunk of black painted aluminum from greasy, seized, mess of a not working sewing machine to a clean, working, although not beautiful, machine, sewing beautiful stitches!

So, while the only sewing I can share from the past week is the first four HSTs sewn on my "NEW Featherweight", I CAN share my adventure in taking her from not moving to sewing.  Without further ado, here she is... Built in the summer of 1940... My Featherweight...

This case pretty much tells her history...
I'm hoping I can give her a much better future!

Here you can see that she has no clear coat at all on about 80%
of her body.  There are a few places where she has some finish, but very few.

The Bags of parts I needed to to bring her to life.  A new power cord, belt,
felts, rubber feet, twenty new needles and a dozen new shiny bobbins.

As I disassembled her, this is how I kept track of what screws belonged to
which parts.  All were cleaned thoroughly in a bath of Kerosene
and scrubbed with a toothbrush before being bagged with the
identifying Post It Note.

The beautiful scrolled faceplate which was standard on the earliest
Featherweights.  Dirty, gunky, yellowed and in desperate need of cleaning in this photo.

Another part full of gunk ready to be cleaned.  All of the surface parts were
gunky and filthy dirty.

Here, the bobbin hook assembly has been opened and the bobbin holder
has been removed.  I followed directions from a YouTube video and wiggled
and wiggled for twenty minutes paying very close attention so I would know
how to get it back in.  After twenty minutes or so, I lost focus for a few
seconds and all of a sudden the holder popped out and fell to the desktop.
I have no idea how I got it out!
I thoroughly cleaned this out though and managed to replace the bobbin
holder in just a matter of about a minute!

The piece that needed wiggling out... Took twenty minutes to get it out
and one to put it back in.  The clean parts spun freely.  THIS is what had the
whole machine bound up.  The gunk behind this piece was literally holding
it tight with pure suction and made the whole machine barely move.  Once
the bobbin assembly was removed and cleaned, the whole machine
moved easily!

This is what a belt looks like when it sits without moving for decades!

THIS is why I ordered new wiring!  This was a fire waiting to happen
under my foot!

This photo shows the "rubber feet".  That gray circle is supposed to be a black
rubber foot.  Decades of decay and neglect left this machine literally sitting
on the screws that held the feet in place... (see next photo)

Here is a side view of the "foot".  Well,
more like the absence of the foot!

And her new rubber feet... No more scratching my desk!

When I opened up the top and removed the faceplate, I was amazed at
how clean the innards of the machine were!  This is before I cleaned it!

 Twenty four hours before this video was taken, she would
barely even move...

My first few stitches after reassembly!

Ready to sew another line of stitches.  Here you can see that the machine was
previously cleaned with some sort of harsh cleaner that stripped the clear coat
right off the machine, and ate away at some of the decals as well.  She isn't
pretty, but she purrs like a kitten, and sews nice straight lines.

Most of her isn't very pretty, but LOOK at that face plate!
I love the fancy scrolled plates on the early machines...
No more yellow or brown gunk!!

And here she is with her first official work!
First four blocks pressed, trimmed and perfect.  Another 20 sewn for good measure.

SO, I have a LOT of work to do to catch up, but now that this little baby is working and I'm almost done with my Christmas quilting, I'll be able to get to work very soon!


If you came from Bonnie's Link up, get back by clicking HERE.  If you want to see what others are doing on Bonnie's Mystery Quilting, go ahead and click, I won't mind!


Until His work in me is complete,
Paul

December 17, 2013 ... A day I will never forget

One year ago today, December 17, 2013 was the date I was admitted to the hospital having had at least three strokes.  The strokes affected only my memory, but they affected my memory in a HUGE way.  I couldn't remember anything, including who my own children were.  The only thing I never forgot is my wife.  I knew who she was, I knew her name, I knew her likes and her dislikes, yet I couldn't remember my own.

My son walked in that evening and I looked him in the face and said, "Who are you!?"  I don't remember that at all, in fact, I don't remember December 15-17 very well at all.  You can read about that HERE.


Today, I want to focus on two things.  My healing.  I am fully healed.  If you read the original post, you know that two days later, everything was back to normal.  I was "back".  100%.  Over the first part of this year, I underwent a bunch of tests to try to identify why I had the strokes, but we found nothing other than I am perfectly healthy now.

I also want to focus on my children.  They were the first thing I remembered on my own.  I want to focus on my son, Jonathon, specifically.  You see, it was into Jonathon's eyes I looked when I said, "Who are you?"  Over the first few months of this year I felt horrible about that.  Jonathon forgave me.  He understood that it wasn't by choice that I didn't know who he was.  Jonathon, I think, understood that, in ways, better than I did.  But, needless to say, he was still rather hurt by that.

A few months later, that moment in time when I looked into his eyes and asked "Who are you?" and the next 24 hours became the basis for an English paper he submitted, entitled, "A Lapse in Time".  With his permission, I am sharing what he wrote.

A Lapse in Time

Jonathon Perger

The man I admired.  The man I look up to.  The man that was there from the very beginning.  The man that I blamed for all of my actions.  The man that cared for me.  The man that gave me guidance.  The man that spent every waking hour, making my life better.  The man that I didn't give enough credit to, while I was growing up.  The man that loved me, more than I knew.

This man I didn't think about enough.  I never pondered; why he went to work every day or why he cared for me or why he was always there when I needed him the most or why he would give anything and everything to make me smile or why he cared if I got bad grades or got into trouble or had a bad day or why wanted me to know how to eat properly or clean myself or dress myself.  The essentials and life skills necessary to be successful.  It was all just expected.

Until this moment in time, I had never thought about why I called him "Dad".

My own father looking at me with uncertainty.

"Who are you?"

My own father did not recognize me.

In this moment it felt like time had stopped moving.  A lapse in time; where memories flooded my head like a dam that had cracked and was seeping profusely.

All of the memories that I had of my father, he could no longer share with me.

The uncertainty of the situation was probably the worst part.  All of the possibilities.  All of the thoughts I had.  Every single one of the thoughts in my head.

What is wrong with him?  How can we fix it?  Is it something that is able to be fixed?  How long will this last?  What caused this?  How will my family get by without him?  How will my mother take care of all my siblings alone?  How will my brother react?  How will my sisters react?  Why is this happening to me and my family?  What could I possibly do to help?

These were the questions that led to the many hours of  pondering.

Why he went to work everyday or why he cared for me or why he was always there when I needed him the most or why he would give anything and everything to make me smile or why he cared if I got bad grades or got into trouble or had a bad day or why he wanted me to know how to eat properly or clean myself or dress myself.  The essentials and life skills necessary to be successful.  All of the things I just expected.

The final conclusions to all of my questions; he is my father.  I finally realized the reality of unconditional, indisputable love.  The love that someone has for their family.

After twenty-four hours, several MRIs, a CT Scan, CAT Scans, a Spinal Tap, EKGs, multiple X-Rays and Blood tests, and overnight monitoring.  Laying in that white bed.  No doctor could figure out the dilemma that was my father.  The one puzzle I wished I could solve on my own.

The uncertainty of the situation was probably the worst part.  All I had was time.  Time to wait, time to think, time to process, time to embrace memories, time to exude sorrow, time to reflect on life, time to grow up.

A lapse in time.

December 17, 2013.

This date will be remembered for many years to come.  It is a day for which I am now thankful, though at the time it was frightening, both for me and my family, it is the date on which I realized how precious life is.  It is the date on which I learned that I need to be thankful for all I have RIGHT NOW.  Because none of us are guaranteed a tomorrow... Nor are we guaranteed to remember our yesterdays...

Until His work in me is complete,
Paul

Baby Quilt - Part Two...

As I mentioned in the previous post, I failed to take as many photos as I have in the past, so there were quite a few steps between the end of the previous post and the beginning of this one, but here is the completion of the Baby Quilt...

I always lay out my layers on the floor and tape them down using painters tape, so the backing went down first, then the batting, and then the top.

Layed out and ready for pinning...

I dump a bunch of pins and then start pinning...

I try to put pins about every four inches.  For this quilt, I planned to do straight line quilting around the purple columns, inside the purple columns and then use a decorative stitch straight down the center of the purple columns.

While out shopping one day, I happened to find the same fabric that Grandma had used to cover the rocking chair, and I picked some up to use as binding.  I think stripes, polka dots, or any swirly pattern works great for binding and when I initially saw the fabric, I knew it would be perfect for binding, but there wasn't quite enough, so I was super excited to find the same fabric so I could bind this quilt using it.

I will always opt for cutting my binding fabric on the bias if I have the choice.
It makes laying that binding flat SO much easier...
Though it is bit of a pain to cut it!

Then I press together and roll onto a large spool.

I use hair clips to keep my binding in place while I sew.

I didn't get a real good photo of the full quilt, but
here is about half of it...

And the last step is secure the label under the binding, this way I only have a small amount of hand stitching to secure the label for future posterity.

Simple Hand Written label, and the gift was ready to be given.

I made this Baby Quilt much larger than a traditional baby quilt because I wanted it to be large enough for mom or dad to snuggle with baby while rocking in that rocking chair with the matching fabric.

And THIS is why we all do what we do...

Baby and Mother cuddling under the quilt...
There can be no better way to see one of my quilts!

Hopefully I'll be able to post some more next week.  I am working on two projects right now.  One I can share, and one I can not... Yet... So while posts are being written, none will be seen unless I can carve out time to actually work on Bonnie's Mystery.

Until His work in me is complete,

Paul