Thread Stand for Singer Sewing Machine 221/222

Hello

Hope that you all had a lovely Christmas, it was very quiet here in the Button Box house, our local pub changed owners on 18th and was immediately shut until the end of January.  Apparently it is going to be refurbished and made into a Restaurant/pub.  We normally call in for a drink on Xmas day along with half the village, it is always nice to wish everyone the best, we really missed the occasion especially Buzz as he loves going to the pub with us although he is totally tea total.

Anyway, Sandi Claus was very good to me.  Look what he brought.  A thread stand for the Featherweights.  Yeah

Actually it was a gift from my super sister Sandi.

Its has been designed and manufactured by singer-featherweight.com  It has was made so that you can use modern cross threaded bobbins on these machines.  The 221/222 were designed for vintage bobbins which pulled thread off from the side but bobbins on modern day machines the bobbins are laid on their side which pulls the thread from the end of the spool.  

I normally use, small vintage bobbins on my vintage machines with a spool spring and felt on the pin so the thread is pulled fairly smoothly.

But today am using a large vintage Sylko bobbin, which due to its size does pull off with a bit of jerk which effects the tension on the stitch.  

The thread stands works brilliantly with this large bobbin, no sign of any jerk so the stitches are loads better.  I have struggled a bit with this machine to get a good stitch, it's more powerful than the 221 so sets off with a bit of spurt which was jerking the thread.

So have spent the afternoon playing with my new gadget.

The lovely Anita (who gave me all the quilting equipment and fabric) found another of her work in progress quilt and asked me if I could finish it off for her by machine quilting it.  Great, an ideal opportunity to use the large bobbins on the machine along with the thread stand.  

These are my extra grippy Showa gardening gloves which I had originally bought to garden in but they are brilliant for doing machine quilting.  It feels weird wearing gloves in the house but oh my, so good for moving the quilt about on my small machine.  This quilt has lots of changes of direction.

My partner bought me a large charm pack by Moda which I will use to fix the Civil War quilt.  I keep having a peek and stroke of the fabric, its soo lovely.

Wishing you all a lovely stitchy New Year.

Cheers

Sharon

Christmas Patchwork Tree Decorations

Hello

I love making decorations for my tree adding new ones each year.  Have made these English Paper Piecing Pentagon ones before but this year added the mini pom pom trim and bells. The bells sound wonderful.

My sister and I went on a Redwork workshop at Drawn Threads, run by the lovely Sarah.  She showed us how to make this little flock of birds.

 I visited Mandy Shaw's stall at the Stitchshow at Harrogate and stocked up on thread and fabric. The thread and holder went in one of the pockets on my advent calendar.  Each day, whatever is in there, I try to use.  So had a practice doing some more Redwork using old embroidery transfer patterns that I had found when clearing my parents house.  They were with one that that was dated 1965.  So they are quite an age.

This little birdie was inspired by old glass tree decorations we had at home when I was a kid, none left now but this was the shape of them (well nearly).

There is definitely a bell theme this year, adding them to everything.  Bought these plain gift tags from Wilkinsons, added the red bell and holly leaves cut from felt with an eyelet to thread them onto the string.

The little pegs were another "me pressie" out of the Advent Calendar.

Cheers

Sharon

American Civil War Quilt

Hello

Yesterday was like any other work day, raking leaves in the front garden of my customers.  Their neighbour stopped to chat to me and of course, seeing that snow has been forecast were talking about that, mainly that he was going to take his book stall to a market in Tynedale. He started to tell me that there was a really good plant stall there.  I explained that I do nothing garden related in my spare time and that I sewed and made quilts.  Oh, he said that he had a nice book on American quilts and an original Civil War quilt.  Wow.  He went to get the book to show me but came back with the quilt.

He had bought it in Charlotte, North Carolina USA as an 1850 Civil War Quilt.  He used to be in a Civil War reenactment Society, he bought the quilt to use, he said it kept him very warm whilst camping.

He then asked if I would like it!  Goodness me, how kind is that.  He wanted it to go to someone who would appreciate it and perhaps mend it.  After double checking it was Ok for me to take it, "yes definitely" so off  in my van it went.

Its got some large sections of damage and a good deal of the fabric is delicate.

The back is a plain fabric which is worn thin, at first I thought it was rust marked but have done a little bit of research on old quilts, the rusty bits are the remains of long gone dead bugs!  Yuck.

At first I thought that I would just leave it as it is but on reflection, if I carefully repair, darn and patch, it will just be another bit of history to very old quilt.

I have spoken to the Village Fabrics at Wallingford, they do packs of reproduction Civil War fabrics, I have sent her a photo of the quilt and she will pick the best packs out for me.  I will make new large triangles using 2 different coloured small triangles (I am sure there will be a name for this type of block) and applique them on top of the worst of them, there are 10 that need fixing.  The holes will be darned and I will put some binding on the edges to protect it.  It will need a gentle hoover using a fine fabric over the nozzle to clean it up, its far too gone for a wash!  I will sew a label for the back, giving its history and when I repaired it.

It might take a while so watch this space.

A big thank you to Peter, what a kind chap.

Cheers

Sharon