White / Green Featherweight

Well, I have acquired another Singer Featherweight sewing machine.  Supposedly these are rarer than the black Singer Featherweights.

While traveling the Oregon Coast from the California border to the Washington border, and shop hopping for the Quilt Run 101, my husband found this for sale at one of the quilt shops while I was looking at fabric.  He is such a dear, he knew I wanted a white/green one, but I had told him they were really rare, and I doubted we would even come across one to buy, much less at a cost we could our would spend.  

This quilt shop had a second partner that does upholstery and home decorating, but was wanting to retire and was selling off some of her goodies.  And one of them was this machine.  I dickered with her a little bit and we picked it up for what most black ones go for in price and walked out the door with it.

It came with the original green/white case, several feet three bobbins and the instruction book.  I plugged it in, threaded it, and did a sample stitch line and it sews perfectly!

The serial numbers on these are more difficult to find out the date that they were release for sale, but from what I can gather, this one came out in 1968.

It is also my understanding the white/green ones are better made, and have more durable parts.  One expert has this to say about them:

 Singer Featherweight machines were produced in black, beige/tan and  white/green (what the company called Pale Turquoise)

White/Green machines were produced only at Clydebank, Great Britain 

he fabric/rubber belt on White/Green machines does not break. In fact it  makes for a quieter and slightly-lighter machine

Repairmen did not like the White/ Green machine and spread rumours about  its unreliability. Not true. The reason it was not favoured in the trade was  that because of the belt the whole machine could not be dumped in cleaning  fluid as a quick and easy service option

It is not possible to accurately state the manufacturing date of any Singer

 Featherweight. Singer claims to be able to do this, but the information the  company gives out refers to the dates on which large batches of serial  numbers were released to the various factories. It's pretty safe to assume that  a particular machine was not made before its "birthdate" but it could have  been produced considerably later

So this makes my 10th sewing machine taking up residence in the house/sewing room.  Hmmmm...not sure if there will be any more?

Note:  I have updated my tab "Sewing Machines" with new pictures and written updates.

Warmest...

"Little Trip to Bali"

I have had this as a UFO for about 4 years.  I was working at a local quilt shop, and saw this in the book, "Keepsake Baby Quilts from Scraps"by Julie Higgins from Clotilde.com.  (See I was liking scrappy quilts for some time now!)

It was my first time using batiks, so I ended up buying lots of fat quarters, and a charm pack.  

I had all of the elephant blocks appliquéd, and the center blocks all cut out.  I went ahead and assembled the center blocks and then went on to make the top.  I also used a batik for the background, which can be hard to find the lighter colors.  

I now have it sandwiched and pinned and working on the quilting.  So far I have done cross hatching in the center, as the blocks are on point.

I chose to do shadow quilting around the elephants.  There are twelve of them, and this part is taking longer than I expected.

Then there were the blank corner blocks and the blank blocks in between the elephant blocks that I needed to do some kind of quilting, as that was lots of big spaces.  

So I took the original stencils of the elephant, and outlined it on each block and just did a stitching around the outline.  

It's a little hard to see when taking pictures, but it finished out these blank spaces just perfect.

I have about three elephants to do the shadow quilting, and then I will be able to get it bound and another one will be completed.

I'll be back with finished pictures in a few days.  

Warmest...

The 40's Basket Quilt

I mentioned that I had gotten back three quilts from the long arm quilter, and I needed to add binding to them.  This is the first on that I did, the 40's print of basket patterns.

I needed to chose a binding color, and came up with 30's reproduction blue and yellow.

As you can see here (work in progress of putting on the binding), I chose the yellow.  This whole quilt was bright and cheery, I went with the the color that was just that, the one that looks like the sun.

These are the only pictures I picked to use for now (the weather here in the Pacific Northwest is not working withe blog picture taking) of this quilt. 

This is a close up of one of the basket blocks showing the quilting and one of the basket patterns used in the quilt.  If you look at the top picture of the whole quilt, you'll notice that each basket block is a different pattern.

I am really happy to see that this one is done, finished, complete!  It will fit a twin size bed and will look just right someday, when I figure out how to do some displaying of them throughout the house.  

Warmest...

Allietare Top Completed

I have finally completed the top of the Allietare Mystery Quilt for 2015 by Bonnie Hunter from Quiltville,  You can find out all about this mystery and all the parts to the direct link here.   It came out bigger than I expected, and I still have borders to do, but all in all, I am really pleased with how it turned out!  I posted a progress picture on the groups Facebook page and I received over 800 likes and over 70 comments.  WOW!!!  So many followers liked my choice of softer more pastel color way, which was very surprising.  Even Bonnie Hunter herself left me a nice comment on my color choices.  I was impressed, as she has over 35,000 followers on her Facebook group page.  

Edited after thinking about the border colors more and some feedback comments from some very nice people from this Facebook group. 

I am going to use the dark green yellow as my first border, which will be 1 1/2" border, and the red / orange print for the outer border, which will be about 4 1/2".  Then I may bind it in the yellow green to tie it all together.

 

There is a link up every Monday (I'm a little late in getting mine done) and you can go here to see all the colors and finished quilts from all the other participants.

I got three quilts back from my long arm quilter, so I just need to get some binding on, and I will be posting the finished results in the next few days.

Warmest...

Allietare Mystery Quilt Reveal

The big reveal of the 2015 Mystery Quilt by Bonnie Hunter was on the day before New Year's Day (she did the reveal at the time it was New Year's in Italy, as that is what she did her mystery quilt from her trip there earlier this year).  But I had another project under my machine needle, so I couldn't work on it until tonight.

I you are interested in looking at the whole quilt done using the two blocks as pictured above, you can find out all about it here.  This is also a link up of many of the participants and their own blogs that you can look at others complete quilts, progress, and what they have to say about the whole process.  Many did different color ways like I did, but many did it along the colors Bonnie suggested. All are very pretty, and I like this years mystery quilt better than last year's.  You can read about mine here from last year if interested.   I hope to work on completing this this week, as it will take more work than just sewing the completed units into blocks and then sewing the blocks together.  I still have to make some setting triangles, as this quilt is set on point.  

Warmest...

More Leftovers

I was looking for some backing pieces that I knew I had stored in some of my fabric bins out in the garage, so I as I was looking for these backing pieces, I came across a UFO that I had already cut out, but for some reason did not go ahead and get it sewn up.  I did get this stitched up before Christmas, but I have hit a little snag.  Read on and I will further explain.

The pattern called Fresh Tradition comes out of the magazine "American Patchwork and Quilting" in their February 2007 issue by the designer Darlene Zimmerman.  Darlene Zimmerman is famous for using 30's reproduction fabrics and has several fabric lines of her own.  Since I so like 30's reproduction fabrics so much, I really enjoy her patterns and fabrics.  In fact I have a lot of her different lines over the years.  As I have mentioned before, I have a large storage bin full of these fabrics.  

It is a simple four patch and what I call half a snowball block as seen in this close up picture.  

The pattern of the quilt top comes in the arrangement of the blocks.  I like the vintage look of the solid dark blue.  The dark blue at the bottom of the quilt top is the backing peeking out, as this picture shows the it all sandwiched together ready for the quilting I need to do next.

I

It should have had solid blue bindings, but then I would have had to piece the backing.   Now that I have it sandwiched and see a hint of what a blue border (it is the backing peeking out), I might have to change my mind and un-sandwich it, put on the blue borders and then piece the backing.  Sigh, I do so dislike doing double work.

Hint:  Bonnie Hunter has complete instructions to do this quilt pattern on her site "Quiltville" that you can fine here. She does hers in red, white, and blue, which gives you a different look of the same pattern.

Merry Christmas

I can't believe we are ready to celebrate Christmas, but here it is right now.  

See you after the first of the year!  Maybe sooner.....