Sew I See!

This blog has been quiet for the past month-and-a-half.  What with one thing and another, it hasn't felt like the time to write.  Donald was away for a while to attend his father's funeral and spend some time with the rest of his family in Sweden.  Now that he's back home again and we're returning to our routines, I think I'm ready to also return to blogging.   I suppose there's no better way to get back to blogging than to just write a blog post!  (Buckle in for a long one, this time...) I had thought that while Donald was away I'd get all sorts of crafty things done.  Well, I thought it was possible .  I wasn't really expecting an amazing spurt of activity, wise from previous occasions when I found myself ostensibly with all the time in the world to --insert crafty pursuit of your choice--, only to discover that I actually get less done, when my routine is thrown off-kilter.   That's exactly what happened this time, too.  I did spend a little time

As mentioned in the last entry, I've reached the point in the crumb quilt where I needed to jump in and start piecing letters and words.  The first few words'-worth 😜 of letters went pretty well, I think.  Then I thumped over a speed bump and slowed right down.   It might have been that those first letters just happened to be "easy" ones, and then I came to one that wasn't so easy.  Or maybe I just ran out of steam or got distracted... I'm not sure why, but I lost my mojo for piecing those letters.  I have quite a few left to do, and I'll get back to them soon, but I'm not going to push it, since there's no deadline.  (I've been feeling rather stressed in general, lately, so that probably has something to do with it!) If anyone's interested, I'm using the freestyle letter-piecing method outlined in  Word Play Quilts , by Tonya Ricucci.  It looks like it's out of print.  There are second-hand copies floating around out there, but I

 A few days ago, I woke too early and had trouble getting back to sleep. I finally decided I wasn't going to fall asleep again, so I went to the craft room to work on the crumb quilt.   I've been assembling more crumb strips, roughly measuring them to the same general length (and adding more pieces where needed), then laying them aside, trying to clear up some space on the design wall-- and also looking to learn whether or not it was too soon to put away the leftover crumbs.   Here's the view from the sewing machine once daylight broke... It's peaceful in there, and so quiet with everyone else asleep.  Pieceful?  Crumb-pieceful?   The design wall is still holding the last of the un-joined-up string stars, the border units for that quilt, and (in this photo, at least) the remnants of the crumb blocks.  As of this writing, those crumb units are all stitched together.  I'm ready to move on to the next phase, at long last! Here are the crumb strips, draped unceremonious

Here I am again, trying to do better than one blog post per month... 😅 The first topic for today is a bit of a weird one.  Remember those mysterious paper circles ("confetti" with something inside) I found in a small box with the spare needles for the Minnesota?  Here's the photo again, for a reminder: I couldn't figure out what they were, so I asked somewhere online-- one of those helpful groups of people who enjoy identifying random things for random strangers-- and several people said they look like "ammunition" for an old-fashioned cap gun.  I tried hitting one with a hammer (outside).  There was no bang or smoke, but perhaps that's not so surprising, considering how old these may be.  Maybe they've been exposed to too much humidity over the years, or maybe that one was just a dud.  Either way, it definitely smelled like sulfur, and looking online for images of "round caps", I see some that look similar.  I feel confident that's wh

Warning! 😉  This is a particularly long blog post.  It's essentially everything I know and want to remember about a new-to-me sewing machine, so it probably has a lot more information than anyone else (except possibly a budding fan of vintage sewing machines) would ever want or need.  Tl;dr version:  I bought a treadle sewing machine and am excited about it. 😁 - - - - - - - I've thought for a few years, now, that I'd like to someday try a treadle sewing machine.  It would be nice to know that I can sew even without electricity.  I don't exactly expect to need  to do that, but still, it would be good to know that it's possible.  I do live in a place where hurricanes can knock out power for days, if not weeks.  I probably wouldn't feel like treadling away in the aftermath of a hurricane (it's so hot and sticky, and you're likely to be too physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted to feel like sewing!), but you never know.  We also have frequent thu