...and on to September

I am amazed that the end of August is here already.  This summer just flew by for me.  Looking back on this month, I really did not finish too many projects.  It seems I did more sewing than anything.  Those sewing projects were not even things that I had intended to do or had previously started and did not finish.

I am hoping that September will be more productive.  I would like to finish up a lot of projects that have been lingering around for too long and to learn some new spinning techniques.

I am going to be participating in the Fall Weave-along on Ravelry's Warped Weaver's.   I have 4 projects that have been started but not finished for too long.

Clockwise starting in the top left is a pick-up band on the mini Wave,  a warp-faced band on the GBL, a leash on the core-braiding stand,  and an oblique braid on the takadai.  It is time to give them all some attention.

I am also participating in a month-long spin-along on Allons-Y-Fiber Art also on Ravelry.  Its a spin-along for New Zealand half-bred Haunui fiber.  This is an absolute gorgeous fiber to spin.  I am spinning it on the Lendrum and am planning to do a 4-ply cable.  This is not something that I have done before - new stuff, should be fun:-)

It is a beautiful, autumn colored braid.  Bethanne's colors are always so gorgeous.

Still on spinning, I am going to pick up some cotton sliver at WI Sheep and Wool festival next weekend.  I am enjoying spinning a lot, but I just do not care to weave with wool,  so I am going to give cotton a try.  I received Joan Ruane's Beginning Cotton Spinning on a Wheel and it looks doable.  I am also receiving a quill head for the Lendrum.  I am thinking that will work well with cotton.  The shorter fiber length needs the fast, high twist that I should get from the quill head.  More fun times:-)

I also want to weave off the pieces that are on the Glimåkra Standards.

The top piece will be upholstery fabric to recover my spinning chair and the bottom piece is just really fun polka-dots.   I have not quite decided what I am going to do with that fabric.  It makes me smile everytime I see it, so I would like to do something cool with it.

There are also what seems like a zillion crochet and knitting pieces started.  The nice thing about those is they are portable,  so they come to work with me and I work on them over my lunch period.

So, it should be interesting to see what actually gets done in September.

The strange appeal of sewing

As a young girl and a younger woman, I never enjoyed sewing.  I did not even like sewing a button back on.  My mom sewed my entire life, she took tailoring classes and was a marvel on her Singer 15-91 that she purchased brand new.  She sewed most of hers and my clothes as I was growing up.  She tried with an amazing amount of patience to teach me good sewing skills, but it just never took.

She learned to sew on my grandma's treadle Singer machine.  I remember that machine in grandma's dining room covered with growing plants.  My mom just rolled her eyes in disbelief when I dragged a Singer 15-88 treadle home.  She told me that the minute she had enough money to buy an electric machine, she bought her Singer.  She cannot believe that I actually bought a treadle machine and actually use it.  Actually she is quite shocked that I ended up collecting quite a few vintage Singers and that I use them.

I have been giving some thought to thinning the herd of machines.  I am amazed at how hard it is to pick one or two or three to sell.  They all have something that interests me and I have been lucky enough to find all of them in really nice condition.  But really, do I need 6 straight stitch Singers?

This past week I cleaned and oiled the 401a.  This is my original sewing machine.  Years ago when I first started to weave, I had bought a new, plastic machine with built in zz but it was a noisy, wimpy machine that did not like handwoven fabrics.  I sold it and found the Singer 401a as a Craigslist find.

It is in a blonde Copenhagen cabinet with the bench and all of the attachments.  I have picked up a couple of top hat cams, a walking foot, and a 1/4" seam foot for it.  Other than new oil and lube, that is about all it has cost me and it always sews like a dream.  It should be and it was plenty of machine for me, doing everything that I asked it to.  I hadn't sewed on it in ages, and after a little oil it was just humming along.  It should be enough, but today when I decided I needed another fabric box I promptly put the 401a away and used the treadle.  I quite like the cabinet that the 401a is in for my steam press, it fits nice on it and it keeps it in the sewing (was a dining room) room and handy to the cutting table.

The 15-88 is pretty much always out and ready to go so for months now, if I need or want to sew something, there it is just ready to treadle that pretty straight stitch.

Now that leads to a strange phenomenon for me - I want to sew!  How the heck has that happened?  I have found it to be so satisfying to have a need for a pouch or a box or whatever, and I just sit down and sew it.

In the last month alone, I have made a few new coasters for my house, a set of orange coasters for a friend, and a set of blue ones for my mom.  Those silly little coasters are so much fun to make, amazing - fun with a sewing machine.  It is such a shocking concept for me.

I have been spending time on my front porch knitting and crocheting this summer.  My porch is up on the 2nd floor and I have on occasion gave a pull to the skein of yarn and the blasted thing would end up rolling under the railing and falling downstairs.  Then I have to go down, go outside, throw the yarn back up to the porch, and untangle it from the railing.  So last weekend, I made a yarn box to stop that nonsense ....and what did I do, I sewed it!

I had the fabric and interfacing in my stash, so some time at the treadle sewing machine and tada, a yarn box.  Last night I started spinning a new braid of fiber.  I have been keeping the fiber on the floor next to me in a plastic shoe box and today, I decided that just will not do.  Again, the magic of sewing strikes again:-)

Here is my custom made fiber box, perfect for holding the nests of fiber next to the wheel.  It is so darn cool to be able to decide to make something like this and to do it and enjoy doing it.  Here is a nicer shot of both fabric boxes:

Fun, easy, useful, and good looking.  What more can one want?

I am still no closer to deciding which machines should go.  I do want to keep either the 221 or the 301 for sure.  I plan to join a quilting guild when I retire next year and either of those machines will be sweet travel machines.  The 401a will stay too.  I was thinking of letting the treadle go, but that would be just silly concidering everytime I go to sew something lately, that is the machine that I use.  Oh well, I don't have to decide now so I will just enjoy my bounty:-)