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.

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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.

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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/

July GG ~ I Have No Idea What I'm Doing

Actually, I live my whole life not knowing what I'm doing. \:D/

click for more info

Hi, folks! It's summer time in full swing (since May...) and here's a little not-so-secret secret: I HATE SUMMER. I absolutely despise being hot. That feeling when you walk outdoors and your breath is burned away and you can swim through the air? No, thank you. I'll grudgingly accept it because it means my tomatoes and peppers are thriving.  I have to water everything every morning (some items get more in the evening too) or they burn to a crisp.  At least I have some pretty blooms...

hibiscus #3

My GG post is late this time, mostly because I kind of feel like I've sort of hit a stitchy block but the overall crafting bug is still there.  I have a little thing I've been working on but it really deserves its own post and subsequent exclamation marks.  Can you possibly guess what it will be?  :)))

In actual, honest-to-goodness GG stitching, I have the next (and last!) side of the Husband Cube charted and floss tossed, but I got wind of the fact that DMC's latest colors can be bought individually at Hobby Lobby.  I want to check out those grays before I commit to the ones currently kitted.

I did make this hat on a whim.  I can shoehorn this in for GG as the white and dark blue yarns were originally bought for the Little Cowboy Afghan that I gifted last year.  So this was a bonus stash busting; I have only about a yard of white left and even less of the aqua!  It is also kind of a prototype as I wanted to see how it looked worked up.  I think I know someone who will really like this in a different colorway.

a little feminine cloche

Technical Details

• "Ridge Hat with Brim" freebie pattern by Kool Stitch on ravelry.
• Hook: G (4.00mm).
• Yarn: Caron Simply Soft; Colorway: white, aqua, and dark country blue
• My ravelry project page here.
• Started: July 3, 2018, Finished July 5, 2018, unknown hours.

I loved making this!  It's a very simple and quick pattern with cute results.  Even though I went up to a 4.00mm hook, I think a 4.25mm (which I do not have; this is an odd size to find in the US) would’ve been perfect for me as it's just a little snug.  It won't be blowing away!  The little flower is currently held on by a safety pin.  I thought this would allow me to make different flowers or even just remove it for a different feel.  I did a crab stitched edge in the aqua for a little extra splash of color. It's a good thing I've been on such a stash busting kick lately because...

thrifting is life

This little pile was "gifted" to the local thrift store and of course I couldn't pass it by.  There are four skeins of Malabrigo yarn (the purples and blues - 100% merino wool), two skeins of Knit Picks Palatte (red - 100% wool), two skeins of Louet (grey, 100% merino wool), and one skein of Noro (multi-blue/grey - 50% wool, 25% angora, 25% nylon).  These are all really pricey yarns around here!  The Noro alone would've cost $23 before tax and I got all the yarn for $14.  The Spring Blossom casserole dishes were an added bonus, though I goofed when I bought the green one -- I already have that size!  My little spreadsheet was not updated with this information.  I fixed that immediately and took this dish back.  Another little set within a set completed!

now let's all move into child's pose

Peanut gifts his adorableness to you all. ;)  He decided that I worked out enough and needed to move on to other things, like filling my phone up with more cat pictures.

That's all from me; a bit meager, I know.  Too much tenuous shoehorning going on here!  I hope next month will be better~

June Smalls: Maybe Stuff That Doesn't Quite Fit but Still Fits

Hiya! It's official. We're halfway through 2018. Maybe you don't want to think about that so let's think about Smalls instead!  We haven't had a linkup post in a while; I assume life just overruled blogging like so often happens.  I'll have to do a bit of shoehorning for this one; there's something new for this blog. ;b

click for info!

First up, the sparkly red floss has been delivered and incorporated into last month's Smalls "finish" so it goes from Finished-Until-Floss-Acquisition to Finished-Finished which is always exciting in the stitching world.

finished for reals

Kind of a simple little felt "frame" for it.  Not quite a flatfold, not quite an ornament.  There seems to be an overwhelming abundance of felt in my stash so I decided I should make use of some of it.  I really like the dark blue felt; it sparkles!  It's also very stiff so I can just prop the whole thing up.  I need to get one of those little picture stands.  Plus a few random pearly buttons for the corners.  Stars would've been nice but maybe too much for a simple design...?  I dunno, STASH BUSTING.

Americana collection grows~

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Next up, a "small" washcloth. I wanted to make another of those star stitch cloths, but this time for our use. Plus I used up the last bit of the moondance yarn which resulted in a smaller and not square washcloth.  I got a little carried away making the i-cord loop so it looks absurdly large on this little cloth hah. It's a little wonky in the picture since I didn't bother blocking it.  But!  I used up the rest of the yarn!  And used up a portion of a small ball of white leftover cotton.  STASH BUSTING.

it will still function!

Technical Details

• "Simple Star Stitch Cloth" freebie pattern by A J S King on ravelry.
• Needles: #9s.
• Yarn: Lily Sugar'n'Cream Ombres; Colorway: moondance.
• My ravelry project page here.
• Started: June ??, 2018; finished June 25, 2018, unknown hours.
  

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Lastly, apparently I have small or possibly alien feet.  I have accomplished something magical for me -- my first pair of socks, YAY.  This was an adventure in seeing how many times I could restart these things before binding off.

fun colors

The first sock I think I ripped back three times.  The first time my gauge was so far off it wasn't even funny.  The stitch gauge was almost double and row gauge was more than double (!!!) what was called for (yes, yes, tight knitter, we've been through this before).  Once I figured that out and switched to appropriate needles, the sock as written was a bit too big so I had to rip it out and readjust.  The third time the sock actually started looking like a sock and fitting like a sock until a certain kitty decided it looked more like a toy and pulled it off of the needles out and undid half the darn thing.  It was easier to murder the cat start over.

Add caption

Since I did one at a time, I tried doing the second one on double points in an attempt to address the ladders between the circulars.  I think maybe five needles would've been better than four but you do your best with what you got.  I didn't like working with the DPNs so after turning the heel (of toe ups, hah) I though meh, and ripped it out to restart on the circulars.  I was curious to know how they would turn out with #6 needles but didn't want to chance them being drastically different sizes.  They are still a little different as I was playing around with the stitch counts on the heels.

Technical Details

• "Basic Knee High Toe Up Socks" freebie pattern by Leslie (Single Stitch) on ravelry.
• Needles: #5 circulars/DPNs.
• Yarn: Premier Yarns Wool-Free Sock, Colorway: oasis.
• My ravelry project page here.
• Started: February 16, 2018; finished June 14, 2018, unknown hours.

I really liked making socks even though these took, like, 8 billion years to finish.  There will definitely be more in my future but I really hope that I can address the ladder issues.   They bug me. But, ALSO STASH BUSTING.

This totally clears me for buying more stash right? \:D/

June GG ~ Side #5 is a Finish!

Allo there, folks~  Thank you for all your reassurances last post that "appy" is quite fine where it is!  I am currently waiting for the sparkly red floss to finish the fireworks.  I could not find it in any store, anywhere!  I was going to order it online but they wanted four times the price of the floss for shipping -- lol no.  I am patient and attentive to sales so I know there would be a free shipping coupon at some point.  Luckily within the week!  It took quite a while to ship as I just received it yesterday.  I haven't even found time to bobbinate it let alone use it.

Anyway, on to the giftedness!

click for more info

before

after

Hooray! The fifth side of the Husband Cube is finished!  Narg wound up with a lot of pleasant-to-stitch colors but really seemed to take forever.  I guess because there weren't any little patterns in his large blocks of color like the others had.  And the tail was suitably a pain in the tuchus just like in-game.

Technical Details

• "Nargacuga" glyph from Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, pattern charted by me.
• 2 over 1 on 20-count light tan jobelan fabric.
• Finished size: 3.50 x 3.50" (9 x 9 cm).
• Started: March 29, 2018, Finished: June 8, 2018, unknown hours.  

and then there were five

Next up, the final side!  It will be Ceadus which wasn't originally planned for ???? reason.  Poor guy, he's even a flagship monster in the game; dunno why we didn't immediately think of him.  His pattern is a little creepy but looks really interesting to stitch.  As a bonus for a cube finish, it won't matter which way Ceadus faces -- he's an underwater battle and goes whichever direction suits him best hah.

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Not for GG, but I wanted to squish in a little progress on September's Aster somewhere. It may be September before I finish this one hah.

before

after

At least one flower (and bud) is finished! Maybe the other will bloom a bit faster.  I think I've achieved acceptance on the orange center.  Or at least laziness.  :D

Re: Blogger Comment Fiasco --  I will be doing the "Notify Me" version of the comments on my blog.  If I don't have/can't find your email address, I will reply directly to the comment.  I didn't have this set up on the last post so if you haven't received a reply from me, it's because none were sent!  This whole thing is really silly and I hope that it's soon fixed.

Next up will probably be for the Smalls SAL if I can rummage up another little piece out of my digital stash.  Still not quite feeling Christmas!  See you folks next time for another edition of Iskabibble Babble~  \:D/