sewing machines

Well, that was a…

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VCSstall2…thoroughly enjoyable day!

We arrived on site (my children’s old school, as it happens) at about 9.30, fought & won a brave battle with our very-recycled gazebo and were just about ready for the onslaught when the gates opened at 11 a.m. Not that it ever got exactly crowded, but there was a pleasant trickle of lovely people, all interested in what I was doing & why, throughout the lovely sunny day. I was pleased with the sales; not a magnifcent amount, but encouraging, and certainly more than I used to drag myself out of bed for on a Sunday when I was in paid employment. It was hard work preparing for it, but most of that is work that won’t have to be done again, like making a bunting banner and a display board, or at least not all at once.

I learnt some useful lessons; a treadle is too heavy, when you have to deal with everything else too. Extreme crochet is much more portable & attracts just as much interest. I need to stick to truly relevant books, and sort out what I’m doing about workshops etc, as people were asking & I didn’t have any answers prepared. The pincushions would have looked better, smarter perhaps, with ribbon ties rather than old seams. And I need to do some woven shawls for sale! We had some enquiries for long, slender woven scarves, too, so I shall investigate the possibilities of producing some of those.

In the meantime I’ve had some other ideas for things to try out; they need to be quick & easy to make, using entirely recycled materials like old jeans, so that I can keep them inexpensive. And I do need to think about & plan for Christmas, odd though that seems with a sunburnt shoulder from too much treadling in the sun!

So all in all I’m well-pleased with my first little venture into the “craft fair” scene; it confirmed that there is interest in what I’m doing & also in the things I make. But now I need to tidy up after myself & reconnect with my offspring after a week of intense concentration and absolute focus. Not to mention finishing the next shawl!

Ohmigosh, ohmigosh, ohmigosh…

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Slipped down to the Tip yesterday in a spare 10 minutes, Monday often being a good day after people have decluttered their attics at the weekend. Nothing obvious, so I climbed up to look in the Metals, and there, not 12″ from my hand, lay a very tatty industrial Singer… naturally it leapt straight into my arms. I could see a gigantic cracked motor and a rusty old footplate, which would be no use to me even if I could have taken them; was there anything else? A few moments anxious scanning revealed a bag of bits including the (broken) bobbin winder, and a thread stand out of reach, which Lee kindly hooked out for me. I grabbed anything else loose that might be vaguely sewing-related, and ran off, a mere 10 minutes late for my next appointment, hyperventilating gently…

It’s a Singer 96KSV7 from 1940. 96s were generally fast tailoring machines, but this one looks as if it’s been adapted (SV meaning Special Variant) to use heavy threads & thick fabrics, as it has a tension knee-lift and a higher shank than the only other 96 that has passed through my hands. There was a bit of very thick strong thread trapped in the shuttle race, and it has a massive needle fitted. Upholstery, maybe? I seem to have picked up most of the correct bits, and a few totally random ones too, but now I will have to find a treadle table to fit her, as I think this might well be the all-round heavy-duty machine I’ve been hunting for for my planned workshop. She stitches beautifully, from fairly-small to a gigantic 4 stitches per inch, and has reverse. I wonder how she’ll like quilting? There’s plenty of room under that massive arm.

When something like this falls into your hands, you know it’s just meant to be. I knew I needed to part with my 1895 Singer 15 Light Industrial (probable) sailmaker, as I know someone who needs it more than I do and will use it regularly to do something well worth doing. I’d been wondering how I was going to replace it for the little heavy-duty stuff I need to do, but someone up there was ahead of me, as usual. Now, what colour do you think she’d like to be next?

A real find...
A real find...

Black gold…

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Picture the scene: a green English country lane, dozing gently in the weak spring sunshine. Buds on the trees, but no leaves yet to impede the birdsong flooding down from the trees and cascading over the ebullient roadside daffodils. And along drifts a big Japanese car, slowly, erratically, pausing at every gateway. The driver looks quizzically at the front-seat passenger; she shakes her head sorrowfully and on they go. Then feverish excitement  breaks out; there’s the object of their quest, just visible tucked in beside the next gateway. The car draws up and out they tumble, bags in hand. Eagerly they approach their objective, and the transfer takes place; empty bags are tucked underneath the waiting brick, and full bags placed reverently onto an old rug in the back of the car.  The car backs up & swings round, then off they go, faster now, conveying their precious cargo back home to the waiting beneficiaries… happy roses, plump beans, glowing red & blackcurrants! Black gold, well-rotted horsemuck…

So you can imagine how happy I was to find a box full of plastic compost sacks down at the Tip late last week. I didn’t take them all, just enough to fill my boot up one more time, which should, mixed with my homemade compost, fill my motley assortment of containers, ranging from builder’s bags and gigantic Woolworths plastic tubs to aged terracotta flowerpots. And that will give us vegetables, saladings and even some flowers this summer, given a little sunshine! I have been mending the plastic “walk-in growhouse” and we’ve planted lots of seeds in well re-used trays and pots; tomato seedlings are already showing their heads in my secondhand propagator.

Inside, as well as trying my hand at spinning mohair, I’ve been planning my charkha. I found a box that used to hold projector slides, and some usable bits from a tiny old Saxonia sewing machine that was far beyond hope of resurrection. Add some old cotton reels, a knitting needle, and the gadget that turns the belt of an electric sewing machine, and it’s beginning to look like this is do-able… I shall need to cut a plywood circle and somehow attach two CDs to it to make the big half of the accelerator wheel, and work out what I’m looking for to use for drive bands, but can I have it finished before the end of this week? Watch this space…

Potential charkha?
Potential charkha?

Everything comes to she who waits…

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I popped into the Tip this morning to see whether any sewing machines had come in over the weekend; with the economic downturn, the flood of old beauties has slowed to a trickle as people begin to realise that they may actually still be useful. Lee greeted me with, “I’ve found something for you! Look behind the Metal bin!” And there, to my great delight, was the exact size of grill needed to restore our firepit to full functionality. Not that we’ll be eating out in the garden for a few weeks, but as this season’s seeds start to go in, winter’s cool grey chill is starting to recede and there’s suddenly so much to look forward to, in the house, in the garden and out in our beautiful countryside…

Not that I’ve been idle in the dark evenings. I asked everyone to give me money for my birthday and Christmas presents, and put it towards a very secondhand Louet S20 spinning wheel, which has been helping me make a small dent in the huge pile of Freecycled fleeces in our porch. I’m rather pleased with the resulting yarn, though I’ve yet to put it to good use and actually make something with it. I’ve joined our local Spinners & Weavers Guild, as they do lots of other things I’m interested in too, like Kumihimo, rag rugs and felting. We’re experimenting with dyeing, both chemical and natural, as part of the girls’ educational adventures this term, and some of the shorter fibres are going into felt. So this is how I’ve spent some of my evenings this week:

 

Dorset Down fleece with Dorset Featherstitching...
Dorset Down fleece with Dorset Featherstitching...
They’re made from felted Dorset Down fleece, lined with leftover polar fleece, soled with suede from the Scrapstore and stitched, firstly by machine on a rescued “Light Industrial” Singer 15 from 1895 using Scrapstore upholstery thread, then Dorset Featherstitched by hand with hand-dyed thread recycled from a gone-wrong jewellery project. Didn’t cost a penny!

Bagged!

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Bagging at the Priests House...
Blissful – bagging in the sunshine…

Well, that was good fun! Jo & I set up our stall in the glorious garden of the Priest’s House Museum, on our one & only sunny summer’s day, and bagged to our hearts’ content. We gave away 30+ bags and made another 14, with assistance from various members of the public, as you can see. In fact, pleased as people were to be given a free, sturdy re-usable shopping bag made from reclaimed fabric, the machines themselves attracted a lot of interest and several people couldn’t resist having a go themselves. Which was exactly what I’d hoped for… I’ve offered to do another upcoming event down in Bournemouth, and been accepted with alacrity. So I’m cautiously hoping that this will prove to be a good way of catching people’s interest and getting the message across that something that has no value to you as it is shouldn’t just be thrown into landfill… Maybe you yourself can re-use it, with a bit of imagination, but if you can’t, someone else somewhere almost certainly can!

"Who, me?" Butter wouldn't melt in Tinkerbelle's mouth... but a sausage might!
Butter wouldn't melt in Tinkerbelle's mouth - but a sausage might...

Half the family are away in Wales at the moment so last night’s supper was cooked on the potbellied BBQ. Apart from realising that we need some kind of a guard around it to keep the assorted livestock from immolating themselves trying to get at our food, this was a great success; sausages and burgers cooked to perfection, followed by windfall apples baked under the tree they’d been growing on a few hours earlier. Sadly, though, finding an unopened packet of fondue forks at the Tip yesterday meant that toasted marshmallows were inevitable, and my skirt seems alarmingly tight this morning…

And Freecycle triumphs over Ebay, yet again. I missed out on an industrial sewing machine on Ebay at the weekend; I need one for the tough bits of my quilted bags as my dear old Jones zigzag is in serious danger of shaking itself to pieces every time I make one. I just forgot about bidding and it sold well within my upper limit. Kickself-worthy… but DH took the boys to the Bournemouth Air Show, and picked up two Freecycled machines en route. Blow me down, one turned out to be an early Singer 15, which is undoubtedly some kind of light industrial sub-model, built for strength rather than speed like the other two that have passed through my hands. Sometimes I marvel at how these things work out; I didn’t have to spend any money at all, the item I needed has found its way into my hands for free instead of being dumped! Many thanks to Tara, the donor, who nearly threw it out thinking no-one would want it as it isn’t exactly pretty, and DH for fetching it.

Just goes to show; one person’s “clutter” is another person’s opportunity…

Going public…

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This Saturday (30th August) I’m taking part in a public event under the Morsbags aegis. I will be taking my rescued Singer 201K treadle to the Priest’s House Museum and making Morsbags in situ. I’m also taking along a couple of handcranks, probably Singer 99s, & pre-cut & ironed bags so that people can have a go at making one themselves. So eldest daughter and I are crouched over my latest carbon-burning extravagance – a powered cutting knife – and churning out Morsbags for dear life this week. The lads at the Tip have been magnificently helpful, hauling out vast acreages of “blokey” curtains from the fabric skip so that not all the bags are flowery!

But that’s not all they’ve found for me. My sister-in-law will be gobsmacked to be told that she is now the proud owner of two large blue cast-iron casseroles, which will go nicely with her set of rescued saucepans. Different make, Nomar rather than Le Creuset, but it works… I’m keeping the other two, as they fit nicely side by side in my oven, whilst being bigger than my two orange ones! I can’t help wondering about the story behind them; who buys four big, matching cast-iron casserole dishes, which aren’t cheap, even if you bring them back from France, then chucks them out whilst there’s still plenty of useful life left in them? Possibly someone who’s raised a big family but is downsizing now… but I do wish they’d heard of Freecycle or Waste Not Want Not, our local recycle/loan group. There were good sharp cooking knives and other stainless steel utensils down in the skip beyond my reach, too; I could run an entire shop on what people throw out, if retail premises weren’t so expensive here. Although I have heard that our Chamber of Commerce aren’t very encouraging to that kind of enterprise; they feel it’s the wrong kind of “image” for our town… so somehow they have to be brought from seeing reclaimed stuff as “secondhand & seedy” to “cutting edge/environmentally responsible/high moral ground!” Or is that, and price, the basic difference between a junk shop & an Antique Emporium? Anyway, I could, and did, rescue a very nice butcher’s block, and a big Pyrex mixing bowl, which have both gone straight back into service in my nicely old-fashioned, workable kitchen. There were proper weighing scales, too, but only a few weights. I have two sets, so let them go to an older gentleman who, like me, was fed up with buying electronic plastic scales which become useless after a year if you’re weighing anything more weighty than slimmer’s portions. 

I also splashed out 99p on a rather nice little Singer 128K on Ebay locally. On going to pick it up, and mentioning that it would probably be going off to Uganda with Tools With A Mission, the vendor happily presented me with a free 99K too! What a lovely lass… Not to mention the two that I’ve “won” on Freecycle this week, too… But I can’t quite bring myself to hand over the 320K, complete with all its attachments, that turned up a couple of weeks ago. Now it’s dried out, I’m having quite a lot of fun with that and all the pockets of my children’s worn-out jeans… I’ll post a pic when it’s finished!