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.

RIP little travel iron

 I went to one more retreat this weekend, at a conference centre to the south of Birmingham.  It started from noon on Friday and after I got set up and did some cutting out, I plugged in my little travel iron that I've had for almost my entire quilting career.  It didn't get hot.  The hotel kindly supplied a replacement fuse - iron still not working.  This little iron may well predate my adult son, so I felt surprisingly sad about its demise.  I had to buy one of the new little palm-sander-shaped ones from the pop up vendor Black Country Fabrics which feels weird to hold but works perfectly fine. I suppose you can't expect things to last forever but still.

I managed to travel to this retreat on my own steam, via train and taxi, after DH drove me to the station before his work started.  I accomplished this by loading my little Featherweight in its case, and all my fabric and tools, into an enormous old blue suitcase - then strapped my seat back support onto the front with bungee cords.  The few clothes I was taking went into a soft bag on top.  Altogether it was enormously heavy, and I spent the journey holding my breath that the wheels didn't break or fall off.  I could barely managed to heft it up the 12 inches or so in and out of the trains but the real killer was having to lift it into the boot of the taxi.  The driver must have had a camera and seen the grimacing and near disaster as it teetered on the edge of the boot, because he actually came and helped me get it out at the hotel. I'm not sure I should try to transport that kind of weight again, it's not good for my back either.

At the retreat I was working some more on my Winter Village quilt using my little Featherweight, which once again attracted many admiring visitors. I pieced four big houses, three little houses, and cut out block packs for another big/little set of houses.

I took one of the new folding cutting mats I got from Amazon and it actually worked quite well.  The join is imperceptible as you cut across it but it does tend to cause one thread to be left uncut.  And as the join is in the middle, which is where you tend to want to cut, this was happening a lot until I retrained to cut to one side of the mat instead. But overall it felt good to cut on and travelled really well in the suitcase. It's also got a non-slip underneath and gripped the table really securely.

 For a break from making houses, I made the Quilted Hamper by Beth Studley using the pattern I bought at FOQ and fabric cut from a bridesmaid dress worn by my sister in law to my wedding.  She isn't a dress person so gave the dress back to my m-i-l, who recently returned it to me.  It was Laura Ashley and had a full skirt so lots of cotton fabric to use.  The colour is more true in the daylight picture above than in the evening pictures below. The hamper is a lot smaller than I expected, it looks big in the pattern picture.  As usual with Beth's patterns, there is a fair bit of hand sewing and fiddly binding to get through but the end result is cute.

The conference room was nice and spacious and fairly well lit.  There were about 25 of us plus two organisers.  It was quite pleasant, very low key with no organised events apart from a few informal workshops.  I did one workshop to make a folding fabric basket, taken from this Spencer Ogg video and quite a clever idea. The venue was an old Victorian mansion now converted with outbuildings into a modern conference venue. The rooms were comfortable and the food was good with lots of gluten free offerings.

Before I left for the retreat, I finished off a pair of fingerless gloves for my son's girlfriend.  She is fairly small, so I got my son to measure her hand and knit one ladies small glove and sent it off to her, then we discussed the fit via Skype.  Then I knit a full pair with slightly looser fingers and sent those off, and she is very happy with them.  The pattern is the standard gloves from Ann Budd's book, and she sent me this picture of her wearing one.

I also finished quilting the antique hourglass top, quilt number 12. 

After a bit of repair work to close some seams that had burst or were fraying, it went into the bathtub for a very gentle soak in imported Orvis soap.  After an hour or so, the water had turned light brown.  Some gentle rinses, a bit of draining, then some patting down with towels and I was able to lay it out in the living room to dry.

That's when I realised that what I thought was just a random assortment of hourglass blocks, was actually a carefully planned scrap quilt.  The centre block was the clue.

Once I saw that, I realised that all the red hourglass blocks in the quilt were each the centre of a block.  Each block is made in identical or similar scrap fabrics but because there is no sashing, the effect is rather lost.

So someone put a lot of effort into designing this quilt layout in 1875, even though they made a terrible mess of the construction.  I hope they are happy that it has at long last been made into a quilt.  After a few days of drying, the Hobbs Heirloom wadding has shrunk to give a lovely crinkly vintage look.

While it was drying, I loaded quilt number 13, the Spindrift BOM quilt, onto the frame.  Really it could benefit from custom quilting around all the different blocks but I don't like it enough to put in that kind of effort.  So instead I have purchased a panto that looks a bit like cresting waves to use on it.  It was a fun quilt to make but the end result is fairly masculine.

Do you remember that quick workshop I took at FOQ to sew a clothesline basket, and I made that little saucer?  Afterwards I ordered some clothesline of my own, and this week I finally got round to having a go.  It came out fairly well surprisingly and feels firm.  It's a good size - I've put my spectacles in for scale.  It's not technically difficult to construct but physically I found it quite hard on my hands - you have to pull tightly on the clothesline that you are feeding in while forcing the previously ziz-zagged layers down with the other hand so they will feed past the needle okay.  You start with the flat base then bring up the vertical sides.  I have enough clothesline to make a second one so I'll probably make one for my sister in law for christmas.

I've got two more days to clear up my machine knitting room (which currently has 200 magazines spread across the floor arranged into 'year' piles) before my new Jack H2 Walking Foot industrial beast machine arrives on Wednesday.  I went ahead and ordered it to get it in before the Christmas period and as I had accumulated most of the cost by selling off MK stuff.  I told the dealer that it's got to go up two flights of stairs and he was like 'yes yes we do this all the time' but perhaps he isn't picturing our long staircases due to Victorian ceiling heights with dog leg landings but he'll find out soon.  Apparently these machines are so heavy with their built in table that two men struggle to get them upstairs.  Let's hope they are strong  and nimble. I'm still dithering over selling my remaining standard gauge Brother 881 machine.  I'm not using it, there is no reason to keep it, and yet it is such a good machine and was my favourite back in the day. I suppose I could give it a reprieve and revisit in six months.  As long as I can make room for the industrial by Wednesday.

Pack hacking

 Pack hacking, or modifying your backpack, is a thing I have stumbled across online. This week though, it was my little suitcase I was modifying. I missed the option of having a mesh pocket to corral small things so I wanted to add this to one of the inner lids of my new carry-on. As it happened, I had some mesh from ByAnnie that was exactly the right colour, that I picked up at Festival of Quilts.   I edged the mesh with foldover elastic (also ByAnnie) with a zipper along the top.  I used fabric glue to hold the new zip in place along the edge of the existing zip, then by dint of holding the suitcase upright, was able to get the unzipped lid under my presser foot and to stitch along the zip on my sewing machine. I wasn't sure how much of the rest of the lid I would be able to get under the machine, but in the end with a bit of wrestling and manipulation, I was able to stitch down both sides and along most of the bottom edge.  I only had to hand stitch one corner.  I'm quite pleased with the result, it doesn't look out of place with the rest of the case and it's going to be really useful.

While I was at it, I sewed a long narrow drawstring bag to fit into the channel between the two handle struts to make better use of this space - this will be for socks, underwear etc. as I like to corral those into one container.  I bought some packing cubes last year but I don't like them, they're never the right shape and also I don't want to be constantly unzipping pouches to get at stuff, I like to be able to see what I've got with me.

I've put in several more hours in the machine knitting room this week, as well as packaging up and taking to the post office the various carriages and colour changers that have sold.  This week I dug out my garter carriage and hunted for all the pieces that are supposed to go with it, with mixed success - I found all the plastic bits but couldn't find four out of five punchcards nor the manual.  So I had print another manual off the internet.  Consulting the new manual, I fitted the garter carriage (a motorised machine that chugs along the needlebed turning purl stitches into knit stitches) onto my remaining standard machine which already had a sample piece of knitting on it.  I plugged the carriage in and crossed my fingers as I hadn't used it for years and it's an original KG88 so probably older than my adult son.  Somewhat to my surprise, it started chugging away immediately and worked across the bed. However at that point it got stuck instead of returning automatically back across the row. And the direction switch was frozen and wouldn't move.  

It was looking like it was going to be an ugly paperweight, but I consulted the university of Youtube and found a couple of 10 year old poor quality videos on how to take the cover off of a garter carriage and a few things to look for.  None of those things were what was wrong with mine, but I took the cover off anyway and did some investigating, and eventually traced what was meant to happen when you pushed the stuck switch and found some metal joints near the row counter that were stuck together with ancient solidified grease. Once I cleaned those up, and relubricated with some new Singer sewing machine lithium lubricant, it seemed like the joint was now working smoothly. So after a bit of cleaning, and putting the cover back on, I tried the garter carriage again on the knitting machine. Success!  It was chugging back and forth quite happily. Amazing really, these gadgets were so well built in Japan that they've lasted literally for decades.  

So I got it listed online and it sold almost immediately, and has now gone off to its new owner who will hopefully be happy with it and use it.  I've counted up my proceeds so far and together with a few gifts I am two-thirds of the way towards purchasing an industrial sewing machine.  The room is about half cleared, I still have the standard machine to prepare for sale, a couple of hundred old machine knitting magazines and books to deal with, and a variety of small accessories, not too mention two six foot tall yarn stands covered in yarn cones. I will persevere.

This week I took part in a purchased online Christmas-themed cross stitch event through Caterpillar Cross Stitch, which Facebook marketed to me,  The price included a full kit for a picture of a Christmas toy shop, a stitchminder, some xmas choccies and a two hour live hosted event with a quiz and some show & tell.  It was fun and people were nice. The design is cute although a bit blocky as they purposefully don't use backstitch to outline elements because not everyone likes backstitch.  I do like back stitch so I might add some anyhow. So far I've only stitched the door, so I doubt it will be completed for this Christmas. I was half a point away from winning the christmas themed quiz but forgot one of the names of Santa's reindeer so no prize for me.

I did complete a monogram letter 'A' for my mother-in-law this week, using some christmas charts that were in the recent World of Cross Stitching magazine. 

I'm still quilting number 11 quilt on the frame, I don't know which is worse, my wobbly machine quilting or its appalling construction. I'm probably about 3/4 of the way through now.

I completed the four-way stitch border around my little sample of hardanger, and turned it into a christmas ornament with a bit of red wool coating I had in my stash. I wouldn't mind doing some more hardanger, I enjoyed it. It's just finding the time really.  I cheated on Month 16 of the Australian BOM this week to do the cross stitch monogram above.

I've had my fourth COVID injection and my flu jab now, so I'm all jabbed up for the winter.  The flu jab actually gave me more trouble, the COVID one was over in a flash and had no after effects this time thankfully. Also in preparation for the winter, we spent a few hours in the garden today retrieving the drip hoses to store them for the winter, raking leaves (I got to use the leaf blower which I always enjoy), cutting down dead things, retrieving metal plant supports etc.  So many weeds out there, I am turning a blind eye until the plants die down a bit and the weeds become more accessible.  Our worst culprit is creeping buttercup, it's everywhere and refuses to die no matter what you do. But we've also got some kind of wild garlic trying to populate the back flower bed, and the usual chick weed, dandelions etc.  Only a bit of bindweed thankfully.  This is why I prefer to look at the garden through the house windows, I can't see the weeds from there.

My future tribe

When I retired a year ago, and was starting to scope out what being retired meant, I joined to try out a few organisations such as the Quilters' Guild and the Cross Stitch Guild.  The latter is more of a marketing arm for Jane Greenoff's lovely designs, kits and products but in addition to a members' mini-mag subscription and a member's discount, you have the option of paying to attend one of  the three weekend get togethers each year.  These sell out well in advance, so a year ago I booked myself onto my closest venue which is Leicester. So that's where I was this weekend.  It was all very pleasant, with around 60 ladies in attendance, sitting in groups of 8 around round tables in a big well-lit room over two days and an evening.  

Everyone was very friendlly, many of them attend regularly so were old friends with each other, but it was a bit of an older crowd for the most part. As you would expect, the majority (if not all)were expert stitchers and there was a huge amount of needleworked bling in use around the room in the form of exquisite scissor keeps, pincushions, thread catchers, needlebooks, stitched storage boxes etc.  There were also some amazing things in the show and tell.  We were given the weekend project kit, this year a mostly cross-stitched floral sampler with some 3D elements and a lot of people were working on that for the whole weekend. 

This is how far I got

But there were lots of other crafts going on too, from paper-piecing to knitting.  Lots of chatter and laughter as well.  Jane Greenoff joined us for Saturday and Sunday and chatted with all the tables, and also gave some informal tutorials. I attended one for hardanger stitching which I quite enjoyed as I've never done it before, and I've bought Jane's book on Hardanger embroidery as well as some of the recommended 25 count Dublin linen.  I also picked up her stitcher's bible, and a lovely little kit for a robin christmas decoration. Although DS has now announced how much his girlfriend loves the fingerless gloves I made for him but they are too big and maybe I could knit a pair for her? So I may be knitting gloves instead of stitching robins.

Jane collects antique samplers and had some wonderful custom printed linen with a design from the Catherine Archer antique sampler.  It wasn't cheap but I indulged in a fat quarter because I think it will look great made up into a pouch or bag.

Everyone brought items to donate to the raffle - I won a kit for a cross stitch picture of various antique items, and a little kit to make a heart-shaped pincushion decorated with hexies.

It was a perfectly pleasant weekend, but in a way I felt like I wasn't quite ready yet for a largely sedentary weekend just sitting and stitching for hours in between overly-copious meals. Somehow the sewing machine weekends seem more interactive and you are moving a lot more.  Also for me, hand stitching like embroidery or cross stitch is something I do quietly and meditatively in front of the telly, not in a room full of loud chatter and people.  I think this may be my future tribe, when I'm 70 or so, or feeling too old to go on a more active weekend. But it was good to try it, I wouldn't know otherwise.  These things all sound fantastic when you are working a job and can't go, so it's good to actually test them out.  I may not make a push to finish the class project now as I'm thinking it might be a good travel project to take with me to Japan next spring.

I've been in touch with the organiser in Japan to get some more joining information so I can book flights. I also enquired if there was a western style bed available in the shared houses because sleeping on a futon when we tried traditional Japanese inns on previous trips just killed my back. Apparently they have one room with a western bed so they have reserved that for me, hurrah. Privilege of the aged. :) Hopefully the bed won't be quite as firm as a futon. I bet all the youngsters will feel sorry for me that they get the Japanese rooms while I am stuck with a western bed - bhwah ha ha ha ha, wait until they've tried them for a few nights.

I've made a start on quilting the antique hourglass top on the frame.  I'm using a faux Baptist Fan panto as it's the most traditional looking panto I have.  With my set up, it's a bit hard to stitch the design accurately and at first I was thinking 'gosh I'm ruining this antique top with my wobbly machine quilting'. But the more I work with the antique top, the more I've realised how really poorly made it is. I wonder if it was made by a child, or a first quilt by a beginner.  I mentioned before that all the triangles are cut on the bias.  Many of the resulting wavy edges have been gathered into crude seams, and forced to lie flat by dint of creating pleats of up to half an inch of fabric along the seams.  Many of the seam junctions are gaping haphazard lumps of fabric.  I've already had the sewing machine foot hang up on several of these road bumps, or get caught in a pleat and inadvertently rip a seam open.  So if I can turn the antique top into a usable quilt then I think it's a win. The baptist fan is a good choice as it will closely hold the many dodgy pieces onto the modern reproduction background, adding a lot of strength and taming the many flaws.

Traditional hand quilted baptist fan design,

the machine quilted version is different

I've been stitching away on Month 16 of the Australian BOM - meanwhile they have advised that they are preparing the final packet for Month 20 which will ship in December. So the end is in sight although probably for me not until next summer.

I did some more excavating in the machine knitting room, and put together all the bits and manuals for two intarsia carriages, a linker carriage, a transfer carriage and a single bed colour changer.  One of the intarsia carriages has sold and is with its new owner. The transfer carriage may be going to America. Hopefully the others will go soon.  I've got two more double bed colour changers to find pieces for and then I need to look at my ancient garter carriage and see if it still works.  Meanwhile the caravan stuff coming out of the van for the winter, which would normally go into the machine knitting room, is piled up in the basement and in other nooks and crannies all in the way, until I can make room for it in the MK room.

In my hotel room I was knitting on the Paducah lace shawl and the travel lace scarf, both relaxing projects for night time TV watching. For once the light was decent enough in the room. I don't know what it is with hotel rooms and lighting, so often the level of illumination is just dire.  We stayed a week in Carlisle a few years ago and it was so bad I actually went to a DIY store and bought brighter bulbs to swap into the bedside lamps for the duration. The hotel room I stayed in for one night in Milan was almost completely dark, and had dark purple walls, no overhead light, only two terrible glaring bedside uplighters that were so blinding they just made the rest of the room darker plus you couldn't actually point them at a book or at your knitting.  Sorry, enough ranting, I'm sounding my age  ha ha ha.

I realised when I packed for the previous sewing machine retreat that I no longer have a portable cutting mat - my old A3 mat became so brittle and scratched that I cut it up to use as a bag bottom then forgot all about doing that.  I took a cheap Aldi one with me instead which was too small and too hard and blunted my rotary blade.  So I was looking online for a new rotary mat, starting with OLFA as that is my preferred brand.  But a few websites later I discovered folding cutting mats, which is a new one on me.  These ones are from Amazon and weren't expensive, the reviews are decent.  When the mat is folded out, the seam is imperceptible to the touch - I haven't tried it for rotary cutting yet but it should be ok I think.  I bought two sizes A3 and A2 as they are perfect for taking to workshops in a suitcase.

It's raining almost every day now, so my procrastination about putting the garden to bed for the winter is turning into slight frustration that it's staying too wet to go out and do it.  Hopefully this week.  Halloween was a bit of a fail, we only got about a half dozen parties of trick or treaters as there was intermittent heavy rain all evening.  My first visitors were two kids about 11 or 12 in school uniform, no costume at all.  I apologised but said I was keeping the sweets for the smaller children in costume later (little did I know how much candy we were going to have left over) and turned them away.  When I told DS, he said this was harsh and since they had made the effort to ring my doorbell, I should have given them something despite the fact that they were probably just on their way home from school and were chancing their luck and weren't dressed up or anything.  Is this yet another instance of older mindset not keeping up with modern thinking on my part?  Would you have given them sweets and wished them happy halloween?