August GG ~ The Different Stitches

Greetings, world~ Thank you for the interest in my last post! It was so exciting to me to fix up the sewing machine and I know the post might've been a bit technical.  I've been playing around it; more on that later.

click for more info

For GG this month, the final side of the Husband Cube has had a good start!  And by good, I mean rough.  I picked out many, many stitches over and over (and there's still a couple left) before I finally got things rolling in the correct direction.  And I really goofed up making the pattern for this guy. Who would have thought the characters of v and ^ could cause so much trouble!  I should not have them next to each other, that's for sure!
 

Ceadus

Otherwise, this monster has a very pretty(?) interesting(?) weird(?) glyph.  Despite having 500+ hours in this particular game, I am not sure what that eye-like thing is supposed to be.  Best guess is that it's where his mismatched horns meet...?  He's also using two of the brand-new DMC colors - 02 and 03.  I had thought my husband would choose all four when he saw them but, nope, two of the older greys still won.   The new ones are the ones in his horns.

Side note: I think DMC is quite ornery for numbering the new colors 01-35!  That requires significant rearranging of floss boxes don'tchaknow!   Couldn't some be in the 3000s?!  I don't have them all yet but they are available individually at Hobby Lobby stores which is nice.

I'm also working on another gift (actually two others!) which can't yet be shown here on the blog because I'm being a sneaky hobbitses.  You'll just have to leave things up to your imagination for a while.  Don't get too wild, though.

★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★
Not really for GG unless you count it as the gift of learning!  As mentioned above, I've been trying to figure things out with the sewing machine.  I have a nice assortment of different feet and attachments but little knowledge of what it is they do exactly!

tension control makes happy stitches

Firstly, I had to play with the tension or it wasn't going to matter what attachment I used.  So I adjusted it.  And then I adjusted it more.  And took apart the tension assembly, again.  And took the bobbin case out, again.  And adjusted even more. It wound up worth it as the pretty stitch is there!  I used white thread for the top and black for the bobbin thread so I could see what was messing up where.

zigzags and buttonhole!

Since my sewing machine is quite old, all it can do natively is a straight line of stitches so I have to add stuff to it to make it do all the fancy things machines now do straight out of the box.  The first things I tried once were the zigzag and the buttonhole attachments.   They're really neat little gizmos that do exactly what they say they do!

I'm really in love with the buttonholer.  I have three of them!  The first one I bought I'm fairly certain goes with my exact machine due to the circumstances surrounding its find.  One I bought because it had the extra set of templates and the price was right.  One I bought solely because it contained the eyelet template which is insanely hard to find and as a result, expensive!  On eBay, the eyelet alone can go for around $30 and I bought all three buttonholer sets for under $20.

★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★

mysterious

Lastly, I've been busy making these little things. Any guesses as to what they are?  They're not particularly exciting but they are a bit amusing, so come back for the Smalls Edition of Ishkabibble Babble to find out~  :D/

Serendipity, Redone

Hello to you all!  I haven't anything in particular for the Smalls SAL this month due to something else distracting me entirely.  I suppose I could shoehorn it in because it certainly had a lot of small and fiddly bits!

This is about Miss Serendipity, the Singer 201-2 I found in the trash in 2015.  She hasn't been seen nor heard of since February 2016, when I last tackled the tension assembly and front face plate.  This year I was determined would be The Year I finally got around to ordering and making use of the motor rewiring kit available through The Project Lady's eBay page.  Other people sell similar kits but she does enough work on Singers and posts helpful info about them so I figured I'd stay loyal.

Kit acquired, I dove into the disassembly using this tutorial.  I really wish that blog was still active!  It's a phenomenal resource about the older machines.  First up was removing the hand wheel (the thingy that turns on the machine allowing the needle bar to go up and down) and seeing about the state of things in there.

shiny little worm

Not too bad!  There was quite a bit of old grease spattered everywhere but I tackled it with my army of Q-tips and careful application of isopropyl alcohol and had it looking reasonably shiny in there.  The after image is actually after I started to put things back together as it would've been impossible to properly clean that worm (the spiral gear-looking thing at the bottom of the large circle).  Then I moved on taking apart the actual motor housing...

motor housing - before

Eek. This is the sign of someone doing naughty things to a sewing machine. :( This is supposed to be clean and oil free! A bit of carbon dust is okay and to be expected, but not this sticky black mess. I almost cried when I saw the state of this and thought I would never be able to fix her because it would meant the commutator could be too damaged to save.  I scouted around for "worst-case" Singer scenarios and found that the housing at least could be cleaned up okay and the carbon brushes could be removed from the inside.

motor housing - after

It only took about five million Q-tips!  And my hands were completely black afterwards.  Don't even think about under my nails, yuck~  But, so far so good.  The next part was not so good.  In fact, it was terrible and I'm impressed the machine ran at all.

copper is very important

I am still not 100% sure this is even "acceptable" but it was the best I could do.  There is no way to disassemble this thing entirely and give it the cleaning it really needed and I couldn't just dunk the whole thing in alcohol due to the wiring.  It's also one of the single most expensive parts to replace on these machines as it is absolutely vital to an electric motor!  But to make that bottom part shiny copper again was a really neat and satisfying experience -- I simply stuck the end in our drill, tightened down the chuck, and held a thin strip of VERY fine sandpaper over that part.  It just polished right up!  (This was not my idea; it was detailed in the rewiring post mentioned up top. Told you it was a very handy resource!)  Next up was doing the actual rewiring which it needed, badly.

soldering and heat shrinking!

My soldering skills need a bit of work but they are tightly bound together with not a whole lot of solder.   And covered with heat shrink tubing which I just love to work with hah.  I got to make a fancy underwriter's knot to take pressure off the motor if the wiring gets pulled.  I also replaced the little rubber grommet as this is what the original looked like after poking around:

this is supposed to be a circle

Not really anything left of that little rubber thing!  The rewiring kit comes with this little doodad as apparently it's expected to crumble into oblivion after 60+ years of life.  Drama done!

nice and tidy

Everything tucked neatly into place while I reassembled the motor housing.  Once I put that commutator back in and got the spiral worm held back in (a process I don't look to repeat hah), I started tackling the old bits that just... get old.  And then it's time to reassemble and squish grease everywhere it's supposed to go.

new vs old, ewww!

The rewiring kit also came with new grease wicks and she most certainly needed new ones, yuck!  They weren't even soft anymore.  Just dirty and crusty little things that luckily came off the springs with no drama whatsoever.  I got them back into their little hole with their clip and then stuffed that hole with a goodly amount of plain petroleum jelly.  The greasing done, I then turned my attention to reinserting the carbon brushes which required another order, this time from Sew-Classic, a popular place for (new) vintage sewing machine replacement parts!

new vs old, part two

This was the problem and while I don't know the story behind the life of this sewing machine, I am going to guess someone didn't realize the tubes for these little bricks of carbon should never have anything other than those little bricks in them.  Ever.  The screws themselves are made of bakelite, which was an early edition of plastic.  They are incredibly delicate.  One of the two original screws was chipped down to that little nub and by some miracle, I was able to put a teeny tiny screwdriver in the hole (which was not a slot, it was actually a hole!) and verrrry carefully unscrew it.  The replacement screw fit perfectly in the cleaned tube to cover that little brush with the spring attached.  Whew.  Now what?

little black tire for a winding bobbins

Because I had needed to order the replacement screw from Sew-Classic, I also ordered a few more little things to make her Even Better.  This included a new spool pin (the machine was found with only one), an LED bulb upgrade (so I don't burn my hand off; the original bulbs get hot), the pre-made rewiring cord that runs from the machine to the foot controller, and a new bobbin winder tire.  I don't have a specific "before" picture of the old bobbin tire but it's just visible on the first images of this post as the little grey rubber thing on the left side of the big circle.  What a fiddly little part!  I adjusted the winder so it actually engages with the hand wheel to actually do what it's supposed to do -- wind bobbins, what a novel idea!

I kind of wish I also had pictures of rewiring the foot controller but I was so overwhelmingly relieved to get the dang thing off the table I just dove right in and rewired it.  At one point I was fully hanging on the controller trying to get it off the little clamp on the underside of the table!  After what felt like infinite wiggling, it finally just slid off, easy as you please.  At least I don't have to worry about it falling off.  Ever.  My goodness.  But now, everything is done.  Done!  DONE!!

YAAAAAAAAY! :D :D :D :D  I cannot express my absolute excitement when she first turned on and did what she was supposed to do!

new plug!

I had to do one more order from Sew-Classic.  When I was playing around with things, I found that the light would still occasionally flicker and the motor would cut out.  This isn't good for motors at all and at first, I thought it was due to the commutator being in such bad shape.  But I found it's actually the cord that plugs into the machine and connects to an outlet!  Where the cord enters the part that you attach to the machine, it is very loose and you can actually hear a little crackling noise if you wiggle it (while not plugged in; it's not sparking thank goodness).  Unfortunately, there is no way to open up that end on my particular cord and repair the connection.  I wish I had known this before the original order as I had to pay for shipping again, alas!  The new cord has a polarized plug which will make things better for everything.  But I cannot be done...

a purrfect cat trap

Because I will not be standing nor kneeling at the machine, I needed something to sit on!  The thrift store angels seem to like me a little bit and I found this box for $5.  It's a sewing bench... Or rather, sewing ottoman!  I have no information on it at all, no maker, no hint whatsoever of what it was used with.  The seat part itself was cracked and no longer functioned as a seat.  I bought a small piece of quarter inch MDF board and my husband cut it to size and added the rounded corners.

all fixed

This was done quite a long time ago, while we were still at our previous home.  I don't have very many pictures of the process but the MDF worked wonderfully!  It doesn't have the original print but it doesn't look terrible without it, especially being the seat part.  I may at some point attach a means of storing spools of thread.

the original vinyl print

I had to brighten up the picture to get the pattern to show but the seat is a pretty cranberry color best shown in the first picture.  There is a small tear near one of the corners at the bottom but I'm not sure how to go about repairing that.  It doesn't hamper the function!  I don't know that I will recover this because I like the vinyl print quite a bit!

I hope I didn't bore you with this really long, non-stitchy post.  I'm so, so happy to have accomplished this task and that everything I did actually made a difference!  I have a few pieces of cotton to play with so that I can relearn how to sew (it has been around 20 years) and I get to have fun learning how all the attachments I've acquired work their magic! After that, I'm not sure what my first project will be!  I have a few heavy curtains I've had forever and have always been waaay too long at any house I've ever lived in... they sound like a good start!

YAY \:D/

Happy Leap Year Rambles!

Here we are, ready to be scandalized by the coming of another month! At least it will be The Best Month in all of Months. I might be biased because I love spring and the daffodils it brings~  wiggling impatiently  I have a flower of a different sort for you though.

before

after

Egads, did anyone expect a FINISH? I didn't! :D  I enjoyed working on this one once I really got started on it.  The top flower was finished over two nights of stitching quietly after my poor, sick husband went to bed early (he's fine now).  I was in such a happy hurry to take the pictures I didn't even give it a bath to get the fabric ink off.

Technical Details

• "June: Wild Roses" freebie pattern by Ellen Maurer-Stroh, found here
• 2 over 1 on 14-count ecru huck towel
• Finished size: 4.50 x 4.50" (11,50 x 11,50 cm)
• Started: October something, 2015, Finished: February 23, 2016. At least 12 hours. 
• How did I not track the start?!

all together now

Halfway there!  I do so enjoy seeing all the flowers together.

actually fabric pen

I have July's flower (larkspur/delphinium) kitted up.  Well, most of it.  Though I love all the blues in the world, my floss collection is sorely lacking in that area!  I managed to find four that were missing in a store that doesn't carry the full line of DMC but still need to find four more.  There are a LOT of colors in this one, eep.  Is it going to be a repeat of violets?!

before

after

And here we have progress on FFIII.  Only one letter managed this month; tsk tsk.  I guess slow and steady will win the race for this project.  I am okay with that... for now.

And finally(ish) thank you all, I didn't realize the Great Singer Adventure would be so interesting. :) I am not a sewing machine wiz by any means; everything I am doing now is thanks to the World Wide Web of information. When I first learned to sew, it was when I was but a tiny Rosey. My grandmother attempted to teach me on my Mom's antique Singer treadle machine. My mom also has an electric one but my grandma felt that it was best to start on a treadle because the speed can be controlled better.  I must admit I was not a good pupil at that time! I was (still am, you know!) a tomboy and haaated to sit still and quiet for more than a few minutes at a time. I have a small "quilted" Barbie blanket and Barbie dress that I made when I was probably around 5-6 years old, but that was about it until I took Home Ec. in high school.

Anyway! The work done this time! I was brave and attacked the tension assembly! This... was terrifying. It still is.

before

I don't know what that take up spring is doing up at the top of assembly!  It does nothing there!  And that "gap" is supposed to be horizontal, not at that weird angle.  But, here's the kicker, it sewed a beautiful stitch despite having zero tension control.  Also, something you can't see in this picture, the little tension indicator (the thing with the + | - on it) was at the BOTTOM of the assembly.  Not really sure what happened there either.  It was all assembled in the correct order but almost like it was just put on to keep it together.  Which is possible, I suppose.

bath time!

Putting the little parts in a bath of rubbing alcohol really makes me happy.  The little cups fruit comes in make perfect bathtubs and Q-tips are great scrubbers!

after

Looks much nicer!  That said, something was wrong with the actual tension after I assembled it; it was much too loose and nothing I could do would correct it.  My beautiful stitch was gone.  :(  I was so disappointed and frustrated when I saw this.  I put the machine away for a week.  There is a way to fix it but I knew that if I attempted it while upset I'd really have a disaster on my hands. I have at least learned a lesson in patience! This weekend, after I had consulted with the Internet and Mom-of-All-Knowledge, I tried again with a different fabric, needle, and thread.  Voilà~! The pretty stitch was back.  Apparently one shouldn't attempt tension setting on a piece of thick polyester from who knows when.  A small scrap of cotton gingham helped immensely.  Yay!  I will extra special fine tune it when the rest of the machine is done.

before

after

I also took off the face plate at the very front of the machine and cleaned out the doodads and whatchamacallits in there.  It wasn't too awful; just a bit of dust and old oil.  It only took four Q-tips!  The fresh oil really, REALLY made a difference.  In fact, it may have contributed to the happy stitch returning.

I'm inexorably moving ever closer to the most dreaded task of all -- rewiring.  When playing around with the tension, the machine would randomly lose power.  That's scary.  Luckily there are some amazing tutorials out there and if I can install a ceiling fan, how hard can a sewing machine be...?  eep

Wow, okay, I will stop now! I also have a finished crochet project and worked more on that silly curling scarf.  I'll talk about them some other time haha. :D  Run away now and save yourselves!

Gifted Gorgeousness, TUSAL, and the Usual Rambles

help yourself

Hello, hi, howdy~ I hope y'all had a suitably romantic Valentine's Day, or do as we did, and mostly ignored it because we were in for some snow, yay!  I did find it a useful excuse to make cookies. :)  My husband loves sugar cookies and I have found this recipe to be just the perfect softness.  I do have to bake at a lower temperature but that's just my Specific Oven Persnickety.  They are glazed with this recipe.  I make these several times a year as I have quite the collection of cookie cutters; almost every holiday is covered. :D  And since it was a decent amount of snow (finally), I stocked up on snow ice cream again!  It's so nice to fish out of the freezer in July after an afternoon of mowing!

click me!

before

after

Here we have my contribution to Gifted Gorgeousness -- progress on Rathian, yay! I am glad to have done as much as I have on her, especially now that I'm past all the color issues. If you're new to my blog, this is part of a little gift for my husband.  It was originally just going to be the Mr. and Mrs. but silly me mentioned how cute a cube would be... and "doomed" myself as my husband's eyes lit up at the thought. :)  I enjoy making the patterns and stitching them up though!

growing, growing

I have also worked more on the speaker cozies, also for my husband. I seem to keep putting it off to do random other things (luckily he's such an understanding guy who knows the draw of books... video games... computers... something sparkly over there...) but every time I come back to it, I wonder what kept me away! They're such simple motifs and the pattern is pretty much engraved in my mind at this point. Here we have several little inner sections completed.

click me, too!

February "strings"

And here is my TUSAL update, completely untimely (didn't want to give it its own post). I must have a talk with the Moon.  It is being most unhelpful this year by falling squarely halfway between my normal posts.  I realized as I uploaded this image I hadn't taken a picture of the yarn ORTs.  There weren't many even though I did do something yarny!

guess how I took this picture

Tada! Here we have some fingerless mitts, completely finished no less! The lady who runs our little knitting group/class wanted to teach us the magic loop method. This is a way of knitting small projects on a single (long) circular needle. It's very handy but it does. Not! WORK! on super tiny things... like thumbs.  Perhaps if the actual needle parts of the circular would be only 1" long...!  I struggled through it on the first glove but decided that was for the birds and bought some double-pointed needles (DPNs) to finish off the second glove.  That was an adventure in itself as I have never messed with DPNs before.  I am one step closer to becoming an octopus.

At first, I wasn't too thrilled with the design of these gloves and originally intended them to be just practice and then they'd go off to the donation bin.  But they are absolutely amazing for cross stitch!  I always have cold hands and these provide enough warmth while letting my fingers be free to deal with the needle.  They're even great for sitting at the computer.

Technical Details

• "Uno" pattern by Annika Abbott, found here on ravelry (not a freebie), very well written.
• #9 29" circular, #8 DPNs.
• Yarn: Red Heart Classic Solid, light berry.
• Small size (6-7"), did a shorter starting rib (calls for 8 rows; I did 6). 
• Started February 1, finished February 8, 11.5 hours for the pair.

Lessons Learned
(hopefully)

• How to make cables, they're remarkably simple (C3F, C3B)!
  
• How to make a thumb gusset (M1R, M1L)!
• How to cast off with ribbing -- this totally baffled me, more than the gusset!
• Magic loop -- PULL THE STITCHES TIGHT ON ENDS! (!!!)
• DPNs - grow a couple extra arms for the first round!

Have I talked enough yet?  No?  Here, have one more item of interest.

bobbin case and hook assembly completely removed

I have been slowly puttering around with my Singer find.  On Saturday, I took apart the bobbin case and hook assembly down to the base and gave it a good cleaning using this great tutorial.  Only 65 years of gunk!  And quite honestly, not nearly as bad as some of the horror stories I find with Google image searches!  I used rubbing alcohol (carefully, as it will apparently do nasty things to the finish of the machine) and about five million Q-tips.  There's still a little bit of fuzz but it's noticeably cleaner around the hook assembly hole!  There's actually an uncoated surface down there!  It got fresh oil to make it slide around happily.  The bobbin case was a bit fiddly to get back in as one of the clips refused to slide over the little groves on the retaining clip.  Luckily I am (mostly) patient and eventually wriggled it into place.

all shiny and clean

And the feed dogs!  Oh my goodness gracious I was a bit grossed out by how much crud was in the little grooves.  It soaked in the alcohol for a while while I cleaned everything else and then got multiple passes with toothpicks.  It looks much nicer now.

One part done!  :D  I think I will next brave the tension assembly.  It's a scary part to me.  The machine stitches very well as is but the thread take up spring thingy is not quite positioned right.  I don't want to mess up a lovely stitch but something needs done so I'll spend some time reading up on how to disassemble and tweak it.

Hopefully your eyes haven't glazed over! :b  I think I will stop rambling now and let you get back to your life!  Have a lovely day!

An End of the Month Post!

Hi! :D

Here I am with an update on the pretty Flower of the Month series~ I thought it a bit silly to say I'm posting for the SAL when it has moved to facebook but the end of the month is a convenient two-ish weeks after GG (or before, whichever direction you're looking) for posting updates on things!  I think maybe two posts a month is enough, right?  As long as I talk a whole bunch in each one, right? :D  Plus if I post at the end of each month, I can tell you all how scandalized I am that yet another month has gone by (February tomorrow what).

before

after

What a difference (sun)light makes.  I will say this, these salmony pinks aren't too bad (please watch out for flying pigs).  And for some reason, these particular pinks are like magic to stitch with.  I'm no floss snob but gosh for DMC they're downright soft and smooth.

before

after

And even though IHSW didn't officially happen, I also worked on FFIII! :D :D :D Two more letters done.  :D  I'm sort of feeling like I'm avoiding the "important" part of this by working on the letters but all parts need done!  Plus they're relatively mindless stitching which is always helpful to a tired mind.  Maybe I'm just terrified of making another mistake and throwing this piece out the window.

the impossible table

Do you recall my "trashy" Singer 201-2?  I spent hours upon hours trying to find any dregs of information I could as to what the heck the table/cabinet is.  There are scarce few pictures of this particular table online and even fewer had actual info other than the sewing machine itself.  Luckily I eventually stumbled across the right Google wording and found an image that led to this blog post and there it was.  It is a Singer Student Base N90!  Apparently these were designed for classroom use which explains the slightly "cheaper" wood.  Mine appears to be missing the little cutouts in the corners of the legs but after crawling around on the floor under the machine (lol) it appears that the little strip of wood at the base of the... face? has been either replaced or somehow flipped (the nails are a bit too shiny).

I am just tickled to death I actually managed to find out what it is.  I am mentioning it here in case there's someone else out there who is all "what the heck is this thing?!" and could find this info helpful.  I wish I knew more about it though!  I can't find any old adverts or manuals or anything with info on it.  It's a fairly simple (utilitarian) design which is fitting for a classroom setting.  Anyone out there take a home economics class that used these?  I'll probably keep my eyes open for a beautiful No. 48 cabinet because I like cabinets that open up and then there's extra things to open up in the opened up cabinet.  Spaces in spaces!

Okay!  I will stop rambling now! :D 

August Edition: GG, IHSW (Part 1), TUSAL

That's a lot of acronyms! I would rather have everything in one large post than several smaller ones. Apologies to those of you who have gotten comment spam from me lately.  I have been trying to catch up on blogs and have decided the easiest way to do this is just go down the list alphabetically instead of chronologically!

click to join the fun!

Firstly! Gifted Gorgeousness hosted by the Serendipitous Jo. I have continued on with Rathalos after finding a pinkish sort of brown that actually looks right (for the interested it wound up being DMC 758 lol). I felt kinda silly having my husband pick out a matching color (since this gift is for him!) but I think he had fun playing with all the floss in the store haha. :D

before

after

He finally has his full lower jaw and it is finally not being frogged. I've also started progress on his wing. There's really not much left to him!  I've been saving his fireball for last since he really doesn't need more weapons right now.

click to join more fun!

Next(ly) part 1! IHSW hosted by the Random Rambling Joyce! It appears I wasn't the only one curfluffled by the "full" weekends in August.  We'll have two this month though I don't know if I will get much done next weekend due to prior engagements.  Final Fantasy III came out to see the light of day but not a whole lot got accomplished this weekend.

before

after

I managed to fill in more of his cape in the previously-frogged area above the I and N as well as finish the F in Fantasy. I am hesitating on the rest of the cape as it seems like the next color, as much as I love it, is clashing with the rest of them. I need more time to think on it.  Luckily "Fantasy" is a long word. :b

Next(ly) part 2! Singer sewing machine!  I think I may have borrowed some serendipity from Jo. Would you believe I found attachments for it in my last foray into a thrift store?  I think they must be from the same people as the machine -- the buttonhole attachment was missing the plate adapter... and guess what was in the drawer of the Singer!  :D  It's funny how the things have wound up in different places.

joyous finds

If you cannot see from the picture, the haul included:

• Buttonhole attachment and five cams (green case)
• Zigzag attachment (unfortunately not the automatic one with all the really neat cams for different style stitches but I will keep watching for it!)
• Eight packages of needles, different sizes (9-16)
• Blind stitch attachment
• Hemstitch and Picot attachment (!)
• Stocking Darner
• Multi-slotted Binder foot
• Lubricant and motor lubricant, both still sealed though I'm unsure if they can still be used.  I shall contact Singer directly and see what they have to say.

All for a grand total of $7.50!  I could barely contain my joy.  And every single one has the original manual and all are in such good shape.  From the manuals, I've been able to identify some other odds and ends that were in the drawers of the sewing machine, too.

join all the fun!

Lastly! TUSAL!

one of my favorite manga

I feel like there's all sorts of stuff in there since last time, most of which are the frogged bits from Rathalos and FFIII. So my TUSAL progress is mostly negative stitching progress!  What fun is that!  >:|

And that's all she wrote~ Quick, run away before she finds more to talk about!  :D