Elna days in the garage....

We spent some time at the end of July working on some Elna sewing machines in the garage and getting them up and running. It took a little bit to get used to sewing on these since they have a knee bar control instead of a food pedal. Then when I went back to sewing on my Singers, I kept trying to push the non-existent knee bar :-). First they go to Jake's side of the garage to get a complete cleaning, oiling and testing:

Then I get the fun job of testing them on an actual project. I take a small piecing project into the garage since it's not very clean in there :-). I worked on a One Block Wonder quilt I'm making for my son and future daughter in law for their bed:

The case of this machine opens up flat and there is a cut out (where the latch closes) which slides right over the free arm of the machine forming a large sewing surface. It is very smooth, so the fabric slides nicely over it:

Check out the perfect stitch:

A great machine dating back to the late 1940's. When we first started collecting sewing machines, we missed a few of these as they look like ammunition boxes when the case is closed.

These machines are nicknamed the "Grasshopper" with the green colour and the position of the knee bar when it's ready to put into the case :-).

This is a later Supermatic that takes decorative cams making some lovely embroidery stitches. The earlier Supermatics were green or beige. These blue versions were a little later:

Mitered corner practise

A quick and easy table topper can be made with a FQ and a metre of border fabric. It's a great way to practise making perfect mitered corners :-). I recently finished a table topper and a bonus mini topper and 2 coasters out of a lovely striped border fabric. The added bonus is that you can cut the FQ down to size to make it fit whatever border fabric you have :-)

Once the corners were mitered, and the excess triangles cut off, I happened to see my 60 degree ruler on the table and got the brainstorm to cut triangles to make a little hexagon shaped piece. As an added bonus, the little mat fits perfectly into the center of the square table topper for a different look. There was a narrow strip of border fabric left, which produced two little coasters also cut with the 60 degree ruler:

This is also a great project to practise some different free motion quilt patterns. I quilted the center with flower motifs:

I tried out some spirals on the center of the mini topper inspired by a new quilt book I picked up recently: "Machine Quilting Solutions" by Christine Maraccini.

Here is the back which showed the spirals better on a photo:

The spirals are easy to echo in a narrow border:

Quilting on the coaster:

I gave this set as a wedding gift with an ice cream scoop and waffle cone holders. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of those as they were purchased between the ceremony and reception :-). The colours matched really nicely!

Check out this beauty!

We spent another enjoyable afternoon and evening working in the garage restoring and testing antique sewing machines. Check out this beautiful Singer 115 full rotary sewing machine. I think this is the nicest machine we've ever come across...the decals are near perfect and it's very shiny:

Check out the shine on this awesome machine:

These are called 'wing' decals - it's even made in Canada!

The end plate is in mint condition:

I did some test sewing on it, working on a queen sized One Block Wonder quilt! With machines like this, we don't consider this work at all - it is all play getting these pretty old machines back in working order.

Sewing in the garage!

I spent the afternoon today sewing in the garage :-). I've been working on painting some patio furniture that our neighbour made a few weeks ago. Jake was fixing sewing machines in the garage and we spent a pleasant morning working and chatting together :-). While the paint dried, I tested the sewing machines that were ready and brought my sewing to the garage so we could continue working together. Here is my sewing table set up to test a Centennial 15-90 sewing machine that belongs to a quilting friend:

Chair parts are drying while I'm sewing :-)

Threading the machine....

Jake is working on restoring a Featherweight we picked up recently:

He even made me a coffee and brought two Oreo cookies to go with it. We are enjoying our summer vacation working together on our shared hobby!

Antique Quilt find

On Canada Day, we went to visit our son in Leamington. I went yard saleing with his girlfriend and parents. It is always fun to go to yard sales in a different area! At a neighbourhood yard sale, I walked up to a table and spotted a quilt all neatly folded up. It looked like it was in good shape. There was a price tag on it for $1.00!! Yes, you read that right...one loonie!!!! I didn't even open it up, but gave her the dollar and wisked it out of there in a hurry LOL. It is in good shape, with a little fading of the colours here and there. It looks like it's been on a bed with the sun shining on one side of it. It is pieced by machine, but entirely handquilted. It has a really interesting design. Here is a closeup of the block:

The whole quilt:

Isn't it pretty?

Foolish? Just Plain Crazy? ...or Amazing?

This past November, Cathy B joined our quilt classes and jumped right in with a table runner. She caught on quickly and completed several smaller projects. She fell in love with the log cabin class that some of my students were taking. She went shopping and picked up some lovely black and white fabrics. She decided that she would jump right in and make a king sized quilt for her own bed!!! Not only that, she decided to design it herself and incorporate two different blocks into the design. First she did the traditional log cabin layout:


Next she did some blocks with light squares in the center and some with dark:


She went home and drew out a layout with exactly what she had in mind and once the blocks were all completed (learning many lessons along the way and using her best friend...the stitch ripper) we laid the blocks out on the design wall and added triangles on the top and bottom:

Rather than taking the easy way and adding some plain borders, she persevered and made piano key borders from the leftover strips and added corner stones in the four corners:

Next came the huge job of pinning the quilt!

Cathy is tying this quilt with white and black narrow ribbon so that she can do it all herself.

Here she is busy putting in the ties into her quilt (btw, she's not angry here....just has a clip in her mouth lol):

The amazing thing is that Cathy has just had her 4th round of chemo for cancer! She has been going through treatments for 5 years. She is an amazing inspiration with her determination and upbeat attitude to life and we are all proud of her for this awesome accomplishment. She often wondered if she was foolish or just plain crazy to take on such a huge task, but we all agree that she is one amazing lady. Way to go Cathy....it took me 12 years to finish my bed quilt :-).

Robyn and Mike's Spinning Four patch

It's been awhile since I did a blog post! I haven't finished much in the last month, but did work on a lot of projects. I did finally finish a quilt for a wedding we attended on May 28th :-). That's what happens when I miss my deadline...no more pressure to get it done on time LOL. Actually, that was the same week we had two huge quilt shows in the area and I had several ladies sleeping over to attend the shows. So, I do have a good excuse.

I bought a lovely piece of fabric at Hyggeligt's sale bin awhile ago thinking it might be good for a Spinning Four Patch block. It did work, but it's not as dramatic as some of the other fabrics I've used. Here are a few of the blocks:



I tried to set the blocks with two different colours, but nothing seemed to work until I found this solid brown. I used wider sashings than usual and this helped to make the blocks float.


I had the perfect green in my stash for the border (it has little beige flecks in it) and had enough brown left for the binding:

I quilted leaves and funky flowers in the sashing and feathers in the border with a King Tut variegated thread:

The finished quilt: