Some days, you should just go read a book instead.



I finally finished squaring up the Tumalo Trail blocks (my least favorite part of the quilt-making process). I cut sashing rectangles and cornerstone squares to go between the blocks. Next step is to lay the blocks out on the design wall to figure out the final layout and balance the colors in the quilt. Oh wait, the design wall already has a quilt on it that is half-sewn together and has been on the wall for approximately 3 months. No problem, I can lay it out on the living room floor instead. But there is a Christmas tree in the way. Oh well, it is nearly a week after New Year’s and definitely time to take down the tree. I spend an hour un-decorating the tree and remove it from the living room. Now I have a clear floor space and can lay out the blocks.

I try two different layouts, rearrange a few blocks.

Crawl around on hardwood floor and start to lay out the sashing and cornerstones between the blocks.

Stare at quilt. Realize that I forgot to factor in putting sashing around the edges of the quilt and therefore have seriously underestimated the number of sashing rectangles and cornerstones that I need. I didn’t cut enough. And the quilt is looking sort of short. I think I need an extra row. But I made some extra blocks. Hmm, only 3 extra blocks and I need 6. Get calculator to recalculate the size of the quilt, including blocks, sashing, and the approximate size of the border that I haven’t decided on yet to make sure it is big enough. Yes, one extra row will work.

I look up to discover that my cat has decided to roll on the quilt I laid out on the floor.

Right. I’m just going to go read a book now.

Home for the Holidays

During the holidays I've been working on two quilt projects on my Singer 301a. Nine-patches and half-square triangles are a theme. The 301a is pleasant to sew with and I'm getting a pretty accurate seam. I tried a new bobbin case with the machine; it sewed okay but the case fit so tightly that it was difficult to remove to change the bobbin and it was noisier than a vintage bobbin case. I lucked out and found a vintage bobbin case in a "lot" of spare sewing machine parts on eBay. She sews quieter now.

My main Christmas present is all set up. The backyard now has something in it, so maybe we'll use it more.

My latest vintage sewing machine find was $10 at a garage sale. It is another Kingston, but a later model than the other one, and not made by Brother.

I got the machine cleaned up, oiled, and adjusted. It needed a new tension spring, belt, and bobbin winder tire, so I replaced them. I haven't gotten around to working on any projects with this one yet. The case is structurally sound, but the fabric covering it is coming off or shredding. I haven't tried re-covering a sewing machine case yet. Maybe I need to pull out the mod podge.

Quilting Through the Winter Blahs

Winter has arrived, and I don't want to do anything.

So mostly I have been quilting, with some reading and tv and napping. I can't even watch a documentary without falling asleep these days. We stayed in town for Thanksgiving and I finished Crap Quilt No. 3. It pretty much sums up the entire season. I don't do a lot of quilting with a walking foot, but I straight-line quilted this one on a 2-inch grid because that was what it needed.

This all-scraps-all-the-time quilt was one I finished a month or two ago but just recently got around to getting a photo. It has a Noah's ark panel on the back. I still have 3 plastic bins of scraps left, and I'm pretty sure I'll never get to the bottom of them.

I also took some time to finish putting together the Argyle Sweater quilt top over Thanksgiving. I put the borders on and it is now basted and ready for quilting. I have a stack of quilts ready for quilting that I've been procrastinating getting started on. It's just that time of year.

How many quilts did you start this month?

I finished a quilt last month and a quilt this month. This scrappy 1/4-log cabin quilt was made for my sister-in-law. I tried out a quilt pattern that looks like puzzle pieces (it looks cool, but it took ages to quilt, and the quilt is so busy that the quilting doesn't even show. I probably should have just done a fast, easy meandering pattern on it instead).

I don't have a picture yet of the other quilt I finished. I am not the kind of quilter that works on one quilt at a time. And so I started 5 quilts this month. Excessive, I know, but one quilt led to another. This fast, simple pattern was made of 5-inch squares. The pattern is called 'Stretched Star' and is in one of the 'Nickel Quilt' books. I started piecing it on my hand-cranked Singer 99 when the electricity was out after Hurricane Hermine. This quilt top is finished.

I also started some pinwheel blocks from the 'Nickel Quilt' book with the box of 5-inch squares that I took up to Atlanta (yes, I sometimes take my sewing machine on vacation). I decided the blocks weren't dark enough, so I added darker sashing. I finished the blocks and am in the process of adding the sashing and sewing the blocks together.

This is what I am calling the Argyle Sweater quilt; it will be a Christmas gift. It is a Bonnie Hunter pattern called 'Oregon or Bust.' It's simple, but I used a lot of fun fabrics and I am really looking forward to seeing how it turns out. I finished the blocks but haven't started sewing the sashing on yet and I haven't laid out more than a few blocks at a time, so there is still some mystery about how the final quilt will look.

Tumbler Quilt(s)!

I've been working on sewing together tumblers on the Singer 301a. My cat has not been helping.


I started this as a leader/ender project, but didn't get much accomplished on it over the past year or so, although I did cut a LOT of tumblers and got a few rows half-way sewn together. I've discovered that I mostly like to use different blocks from whatever project I am working on as my leader/enders rather than an entirely different quilt. So I gave up using the tumblers as leader/enders and decided to put some serious effort into finishing the tumbler quilt top.


The quilt will be queen-sized, and it will be a summer quilt so I'm not going to put any batting in it. As I was putting this together, I realized that I cut way too many tumblers (I had to cut even more, because I didn't have enough darks). I cut so many that I had enough for another quilt, which is nearly twin-sized. I don't have a picture of that one yet, but I used a different setting so it looks a bit different than the summer tumbler quilt. I've been basting quilts on the living room floor this week. There are 3 basted quilts in the closet, plus a quilt I didn't finish when I worked on it last December. It's time for a machine-quilting binge. I spent some time winding bobbins and getting the machine threaded and set up for quilting so it's ready to go.

Singer 301a

Soo--was checking out Craigslist and what to I see? A 301a at a reasonable price! So it involved a day trip to Panama City (there is a nice quilt shop there), but what a nice machine (even though it is very, well, beige).


Overall, it's in pretty good shape aside from the lack of a bobbin case and a bad electrical cord. The cord is no big deal, but the bobbin case suffers from Featherweight syndrome. Featherweights are nice, cute, super-lightweight machines that have become a collectible fad. This drives the prices way up, and it also drives the prices of parts up. And the 301a uses the same bobbin case as a Featherweight. Vintage bobbin cases for these machines cost more than I paid for the machine. So, I'm taking a risk and ordering a new, reproduction bobbin case, despite stories of some of them not working well. It still was not cheap, but is half what a vintage original costs. I'm going to view this as an experiment. I found a TOWA Japanese-made case, and I am crossing my fingers and hoping it works.


I have been cleaning and oiling it and trying to make it sew well. I borrowed a bobbin case and power cord from my Featherweight. I have had some problems with thread breaks, but they seem to happen less often now. I cleaned some thread out that was wrapped around the bobbin assembly and took apart the tension. I still need to do some more testing and wait for parts. I wonder if the bobbin winder works.

Sewing Machine Tension

So, I took apart the upper tension assembly on the Kingston Japanese clone machine.

It's a little difficult to see in the photo, but the check spring was broken; it should have a little wire loop sticking out. It's interesting seeing how the tension units are designed. Really all they are is a bunch of plates, springs, pins, and washers. It can be tricky to get all the pieces back on in the correct orientation, especially if you have been handling them to clean the parts, so take lots of pictures as you go. And try to get a service/adjuster's manual that shows what orientation the parts are supposed to go in. Just because it was that way when you got the machine doesn't mean that is the correct orientation for the parts. Who knows what kind of moron owned the machine before you got it and what they did to it.

It took me a couple of tries to get the tension assembly back together correctly. The first time I had a pin in backwards (it popped out of the machine while I was disassembling the tension unit & I didn't see what direction it was originally in). I've taken apart the tension assemblies on 3 machines now, & I'm getting better at figuring it out.

Finally got it all put back together again! New check spring on and I'm good to go.

On a quilty note, I've been sewing a rainbow of string blocks on the vintage machines (plus the Megasaurus, whhich is only about 12 years old). Here they are up on the design wall. BAM!