1.1.11 Pedal to the Metal

Happy 2011 chaps!  I trust you had a suitably riotous time/civilised sip of champagne/nice cuppa tea and a biscuit* 
*delete where applicable 

I had a quite extraordinary New Year’s Eve.

I did a little socialising earlier in the day, but as my year had been far from meriting reflection, I decided to bow out of any mad revelry this year.  

So, I cooked a fab roast lamb, parsnip and red cabbage supper (bliss of lunh today too!) popped some fizz (Lynne over at Lily’s Quilts says her Dad calls it Fizziotherapy!)  and then settled into a relaxing time cutting & sewing a quilt for me. spent a couple of hours with a screwdriver and an increasing feeling of desperation.

10.00 pm - Damiel my beloved Novum flipped out on me - pedal to the metal with NO FOOT ON THE PEDAL!  Yup, the treadle finally gave way (after c. 62 years of action, granted) and was just stuck on GO.




Sheesh!  I’m telling you, it was scary.  He’s noisy at the best of times, being entirely metal, but this was wild!  So, I unplugged him, unscrewed the treadle, farted about a bit, put it back together and … 

11.00 pm … still stuck on GO. When the lights started to flicker in my sitting room I thought “Uh-oh … what if I were about to blow the whole street out?”  Not a good move for neighbourly love on New Year’s Eve, you’ll agree. It was like a quilter’s version of the movie Speed.

Well, I tell you, I was buggered if I was going to see in 2011 with no bloomin sewing machine, so I hauled Mrs Singer (she’s a bit of a mumsy 1970s affair) in from the hall, where she was just two steps away from being freecycled - some months ago the presser foot lever just fell out and I was quoted silly money to mend her, hence the acquisition of Damiel in the first place.



Determined not to be beaten, I took the whole front gubbins off and eventually found a little lost screw …

11.30 pm … fingers, machine and face smeared in machine grease I finally worked it out!  I refitted the lever! 
 Yay!

11.55 pm I tuned into the radio, ready to hear Big Ben chiming in the New Year.  I threaded her up.  She spluttered into action a tad grumpily but sewed like a dream!  (It might well be the dream of a slightly deranged menopausal woman, but hey, she’s a lot quieter than the boy racer) …

Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong!

 

Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong!

Happy New Year!

The moral of this tale:   Never give up on old friends - sometimes they come back into your life when you least expect it and fill your day with joy!

Mrs S and I are going to settle down with a nice cuppa celebrate with some Fizziotherapy and get re-acquainted while I sew my Quilt of Good Intentions.

My Creative Space - 'Echino Patchwork'

 This great adventure is the first machine sewn quilt I’ve ever made!

can you tell what it is yet?

Whodathunkit?  Me, sewing a grown up quilt using measuring and everything!?

*Whooh-Whooh* welcome aboard the Chain Piecing Express … How much do I love Chain Piecing?  Heaps! What a brilliant trick …

I’m so enjoying the discovery process and really like the rhythm of 

one thing x a gazillion

followed by

another thing x a gazillion

All things considered, it’s going well … if painfully slowly - but I’d rather get things right and only do them once! … or twice … or … let’s just say the seam ripper is still my best friend. 

Longer post to follow once I get to that inevitable "I’m totally stuck” stage …

Hop on over to Kirsty’s for heaps of far less cack-handed creative spaces

Sewing Machine Archaeology {Novumber #1}

Blogtoberfest was not just a fantastic way to connect with new people and ideas, but also a really good sandpit for my blogging skills.  I even wonder if my sewing is improving by osmosis from all that creativity out there! if  only


I don’t know if I’ll keep posting every day, but I am going to try and follow my own single-portion-fest of focused, bread-and-butter technical skill improvement, hence, Novum-ber!

Novumber is all about:

- experimenting with Damiel’s attachments

–  hacking gliding through fabric along a straight edge – hopefully massively increasing chance of me actually cutting a whole quilt in less than 3 months!

- sewing in a perfectly straight line while remembering to have enough thread in the full bobbin

… and other such grown up things to be listed another day…

 Okay – So let’s start with this little lot!

I can’t work out what these bits and bobs that came with Damiel are for … So, I went to the very friendly ladies at the Brighton Sewing Centre and spilled them out on a cutting mat for identification – it was like trying to identify some long extinct beast from its tail bone!

As you’ll see, some pieces must have belonged to some other mythical sewing machine dinosaur, as Damiel is, of course, debonair and tall of shank.  I love how we keep and group things that don’t actually work, but look like they should!

from left to right (you’ll be impressed by my technical language here)

• foldy and sewy thing for binding
  
• general foot (doesn’t fit)
  
• lifesaving 1/4 to 1/2 inch guide
  
• very complicated needle threader
  
• 2 extension pieces (don’t fit)
  
• straight stitch foot (doesn’t fit)
  
• extension piece for guide
  
• extension piece for guide
  
• zigzag foot (doesn’t fit)
  
• another fabric guidey thing
  
• zipper foot (does fit!)
  
• button foot – like I’m going to use that given my cack-handedness

So, thank you, lovely Brighton Sewing Centre ladies – at least I know what won’t work now, so I can stop trying to force them on like one of the ugly step-sisters!



Do you have a sewing machine ‘bone’ you need to identify?  Why not upload a picture to my new archaeology of sewing machines flickr group and see if anyone can help?

Out with the Old --- In with the Even Older!

<---Before we get stuck in, let's just draw a veil over Mrs 1975 Singer's recent behaviour, shall we?  -  suffice to say, she's in disgrace and has been sent to a rehab clinic to recover from getting her levers in a twist ... I may end up having to commit her permanently ...

Today I fell in love .... (thanks to freecycle!) 

 D'you want a sneaky peek at his rippling torso? 

 Swoon!

 

Here he is in all his glory -  an early 60s Japan-made Novum Deluxe Zig Zag Mark IX - 

You should hear the motor - it just purrs, and the sewing action is like a knife through butter ... and so responsive on the treadle ... 

Like a 60s Trabant!  Maybe not beautiful, but oh so reliable ...

 

.... or a "Dauntless" WWII bomber ?

 

 He shall be named 'Damiel', after Bruno Ganz's angel in "Wings of Desire"











Look at that feed dog mechanism ... so .... handsome ....

... and he brought gifts too, look: 

 I have to go now .... 

... Damiel and I have some catching up to do ...