Hissy Fits

My everyday workhorse sewing machine at home is a 1936 Singer 15 for which I paid $20 ten years ago. My backup machine is a 1940 Model 15. I love them both because they have a perfect straight stitch and they are easy to maintain. They will both outlive me, as they have both outlived their previous owners. No worries about parts availability, nylon or plastic gears wearing out, these babies were built to last. I have an identical machine in SD as does Lori so traveling back and forth with projects is painless. Click image to enlarge.

So why the hissy fits?

Ummm, it is in my nature? :)
I had been working on the blue and yellow quilt; in an excess of thriftiness I used the off-cut triangles from the center blocks for a border on the top and bottom edges. These were pretty tiny pieces with a lot of seams and I was stitching through five and six layers of fabric. Normally for a Singer 15 this would be NBD, but, something was wrong. Stitches were being skipped and top thread was breaking.

Unfortunately the backup machine had suffered a tension assembly catastrophe a year or so ago (time flies) it literally fell off in all its pieces. As re-assembly is the fiddliest and most frustrating job on earth I had set the machine aside until the next time I went to Hilo to take in for the Old Sewing Machine Guy to enjoy. No backup.

I know how to fix this problem. There is a checklist. I can do this.

• I re-threaded the machine from scatch, problem not fixed.
• I changed the needle, being careful to insert the new needle exactly as the old one was, problem not fixed.
• I changed the bobbin, problem not fixed.
• I changed to a new spool of thread, problem not fixed.
• With a martyred sigh I took off the needle plate and brushed the feed dogs teeth, then lovingly oiled the machine, problem not fixed.
• I changed to a bigger needle and that did not solve the problem either. I was stumped.
• I left the machine to stew in its own obstinacy.
  

I woke up in the middle of the night. There was one thing I had not done.

I took out the needle and put it back in with the flat side facing left. Problem solved. The interesting thing is, I had been sewing without any problem at all for at least two months with the needle in backwards. It was not until the machine was challenged by all the thicknesses that it complained.

Today I will put on the last outer borders and make the bias binding and backing so this quilt can go with me to South Dakota to be finished there. We are going to be busy!

Y'all come back!

Welcome to Henrietta's Other Hat

I started blogging in a storm of rage and grief when eBay changed from a community built on a level playing field to a nasty place, a place that had no room for the thousands of small sellers who made eBay what it was. That blog was and still is Red Ink Diary. Red Ink Diary turned from a rant into a genuine eCommerce blog and moved off blogger onto my website on a self hosted Wordpress format. On Red Ink I review venues, payment processors, current affairs in the eCommerce world and things important to those small sellers like me who are trying to eke out a living on the intertubes.

This blog is for the other Henrietta, wearing my other hat as it were. I will write about my day to day life in the shabby, old, shamefully cluttered ranch style house on a half acre lot just outside a small country town where I live with my husband of many years who manages a ranch, raising both black and red Angus.

Our children are grown and gone. We share our home with far too many cats and dogs, many of whom had been abandoned or ill treated, all of whom needed a forever home. We do not limit the sharing to small animals, there are also far too many horses but they don't live at the house. I have four pet sheep, Larry, Liza, Emma and Olga, who live in our back yard, with Mr Quigley the pig. I keep chickens and grow a few vegetables.

I have a weakness for antique and vintage treadle and handcrank sewing machines, English transferware, quilts and quilting. I am sure you will hear about all of them, but mostly about quilting.

My everyday sewing machine is a 1933 Singer 15. It is a treadle machine but I confess I have an electric motor bolted onto the back. I make everything on that machine from clothes to rag rugs, drapes and slip-covers, and once a coat for an orphaned baby pig! I like to make patchwork quilts best of all.

Y'all come back!