The beast in the attic

 Yes, my new Jack H2 Walking Foot industrial sewing machine has arrived and it is a thing of beauty.

I had to work pretty hard on Monday to clear the path for it between the front door and the attic: removing pictures from the stairwell, emptying and moving three bookcases, moving 200 magazines downstairs, and rearranging the remaining contents of the MK room to make room for the new machine.  In the end, it was delivered unassembled so probably I didn't need to move the bookcases.  The dealer (amazingly energetic) bounded up and down the two flights of stairs with the head, the stand, the table, and an assortment of tools and parts.  Then he put it all back together in the attic, followed by giving me a comprehensive 45 minutes handover which he was happy for me to video for reference.  He was doing all his demonstrating on a multiply-folded piece of leatherette, which the machine had no trouble at all chomping through.

The next day I sat down with some trepidation to have a go myself.  My local haberdashery luckily stocks the heavier weight thread that he was using, in different colours, so I had nipped out to pick up some spools in different colours.  Apparently while the machine will sew in thinner threads if you adjust the tension, it is happier with strong threads or bonded nylon 40-weight.  I pulled out the tote bag project I started on the last day of the Wales bag retreat back in September, and started to sew.  The machine takes everything in its stride, sewing with no hesitation over bulk that would give my domestic machine a nervous breakdown.  In fact I sewed over the point in the side seam where there was six layers of interfaced cotton, a zipper, and a four-layered vinyl zipper tab without even realising it, because the machine didn't change sound or hesitate in any way.  I am extremely conscious that it would likewise sew over my finger without pause given the opportunity.  I am finding the foot pedal rather high off the ground so that I am occasionally accidentally kicking it as I lift my foot into the air, causing the machine to burst into a few stitches, so I need to be more careful.  But it is a joy to be able to just sew whatever thickness I want, without worrying that a machine is going to break down at any moment and have to go back to the warranty people again.

One thing that is a pain is having a sewing room that is three flights of stairs down from the Jack machine.  I keep realising I need something (iron, pressing mat, seam ripper, scissors, etc.) and having to traipse down and retrieve it.  Luckily I have some duplicates that I keep for taking to workshops.  And I'll still be doing the main cutting out and interfacings downstairs anyway.  It's good exercise.

Now that all the magazines are in the study, I have been listing them in batches for sale for a pittance, just to find them new homes.  I've sold three  batches but the next two aren't finding any takers.  I did take some less desirable ones off to the charity shop, so perhaps my town's charity shops are going to be flooded with machine knitting magazines soon.  I don't want to just throw them out - even though they are 20-30 years old, they are full of patterns and useful tips for the now-vintage knitting machines that so many of us own.  I sold the remaining double bed colour changer but have had no luck with the single bed changer which remains with me.

Quilt number 13 on the frame, the Spindrift BOM quilt, is going along nicely.  I was having some trouble steering because the plastic runners on the machine carriage are becoming brittle with age and a bit warped. I've swapped them out for some steel rods which is an improvement, although the steel rods likewise aren't entirely straight.  So my panto stitching is certainly not precise but the effect of the swirls of wind/water across the nautical themed quilt are pleasing.  I suppose I could try to buy more plastic runners if they even make them for this old style frame any more.

I finally finished Month 16 of the Australian BOM quilt.  It was a lot less work than Month 15 but I kept cheating on it with other hand stitching projects instead which delayed it.

I'm getting ready to prepare Month 17 for stitching, it looks very similar to Month 16 actually.

I had a go this week at creating a Christmassy thread reel wreath, based on a picture in English Home magazine.  They suggested buying a heart-shaped wreath - it turns out these are hard to get, and really expensive unless they are tiny.  But you can buy a pack of two small grapevine wreaths quite cheaply.  So I soaked the small wreaths in water for a while until I could unwind them, and then used some nails in a board to wind the grapevines into a heart shape until they dried again.

It wasn't entirely successful, even when dry the heart tended to want to get wider and shallower.  So I tied in a bit of coat hanger at the top to encourage the V-shape.  The spools were a pack of assorted craft wooden spool blanks onto which I glued an assortment of red fabrics from my quilting stash.  Then I hot glued the spools onto the wreath.  It's not finished yet, I need to add a hanging ribbon, and perhaps a gingham bow at the bottom like my inspiration photo.

In last week's post, I mentioned the folding podlet that we made on the retreat but didn't include a picture of it, so here it is.  It folds flat for storage.  I'm going to make a few more in different sizes to be tool corrals.

Today we picked up the caravan from its warranty work (to replace a sticking gas valve in the oven) and tucked it up into bed at the storage yard.  Which meant several hours of bathing it, emptying it out, hoovering, sterilising and rinsing the water system, greasing the steadies, talcing the window seals etc. with lunch at a garden centre partway through.  We filled the car so will have to make another trip to retrieve the final bits and bring the battery home for the winter.  Two years of caravan holidays and we are still enjoying it. It's so comfortable, like towing your own little hotel room wherever you go. And so far we've been very lucky in terms of reliability - in fact it's the car which has been more of a problem but hopefully now that they've replaced the clutch, it will be better.

The end result is that my house looks like a bit like we are aspiring hoarders: a study full of magazines and knitting machine bits, a landing and attic full of caravan cushions and equipment, more machine knitting bits being organised into piles for disposal, my knitting room has been trashed because I chucked a bunch of stuff in there from the machine room to get it out of the way, a pile of bagmaking supplies around the new machine....  We basically have too much stuff.  And downsizing is really hard work but I'm trying.

I'm also putting in some time researching my trip to Japan. I bit the bullet and picked arbitrary dates of a week before, and two weeks after, my language school course and bought my plane ticket.  There are just so many places to see in Japan that sound wonderful, it's really hard to choose and also to estimate how much time would be needed.  In the past I have 'itineried to death', as one Facebook traveller put it, and tended to overbook myself because I want to see everything.  So I'm trying hard not to do that this trip, and allow a lot more time for just walking around and letting life happen.  Or even just having a quiet afternoon in my hotel room, which seems like heresy when you've paid money to go so far, but that's what some Facebook travellers say that they do when they are feeling a bit burnt out.  On such a long trip, it could happen.  I tend to feel quite tired after speaking Japanese for just 30 minutes with online language exchange partners, so immersion likely will be exhausting.