Happy Wednesday morning, everyone! (are you happy? It's hump day! 2 more days left in the week. Okay. I'm scrambling here. IS IT FRIDAY YET?! heheh)

What's everyone been up to? Busy?

ME TOO!

Here we go! Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday.

1. Singer 66-16 Project (continued)
So I've been plugging along at fixing up an old 1941 Singer model 66-16. I've rewired the motor, disconnect the knee bar and wired a new foot pedal, repaired and rewired the light and the electric cord. (the other posts on this are {here})

Next on the list was to clean it up.

I ended up using a chrome cleaner on the front nose plate and rear cover plate. The rear cover plate was not original to the machine - I picked it up on eBay for $7. And it was in rough shape:

dirty nose plate and disgusting back plate

I'm still working on cleaning it up, but once I got most of the grime off I realized the chrome finish is completely gone on it, but it looks better than it did:

still needs more scrubbing

I just wish I had offered a little less for it than $7. Oh well.

Once the nose plate was off, I cleaned up the innerds with a bit of metal polish and cotton swabs/pads. I then oiled the bejeebers out of it. Again. And again. And again. Until all of the squeaks were no longer. The clean nose plate looks much better than it did:

all shined up! took my rings off just in case the chrome polish would wreck the gold

Then, I spent an hour giving it a damp cloth bath, removed the tape on the deck first by dampening it with a soaked cotton pad (being careful not to get any water in the inner workings...)

UGH! TAPE GOO!!

and then gently scraped off as much of the tape as I could with my finger nails.

Then, I used Goo Be Gone on the goo left behind. It didn't harm the finish or the decals (fewf!).

All cleaned up (the decals are immaculate on this machine, considering it's 73 years old)...unfortunately, the tape pulled the finish off of the machine (I'm not sure if you can see it here, but there are dull strips left where the tape used to be on the deck by the needle plate):

not sure if you can make it out, but see the dull strips along the needle plate? That's where the ancient tape pulled off the finish. :( My poor baby!

Dismantled the hand wheel and cleaned it all up:


So now, it's time to refinish the cabinet. Purists are going to hate me, but I'm going to sand the entire thing down removing the finish, re-stain the top, and paint & distress the body and legs.

I'm waiting until my mum visits in June to do all of this - it's going to be fun - in the meantime, my hubby has promised to bring it upstairs to the dining room for me so that I can start working at night while the kids sleep. EEP!

Wanna see her run???

2. Baby Quilt
My sister in law (SIL) is due in August, and I've just been informed her baby shower will be the last weekend in June. So! I must finish a bunch of projects for her and get them shipped off to Canada in time for the shower.

One such project is her baby's quilt. She really liked this quilt panel:


so I thought I'd incorporate it for her. I've been busy cutting triangles on my lap while the kids are in bed at night:

I love my June Tailor Cut 'n Press! (and excuse my Polar Bear pajamas hehehe)

...to incorporate as a border, and along the backside of the quilt. More on this soon.

3. Toiletry Bag
I'm making a cute toiletry bag for my SIL for her hospital stay when she goes in to deliver. She loves jewel tones, and I have this awesome Kate Spain print that I think she'll love. And, I made a pretty pink and black damask one too while I was at it:

I used my Therm O Web Fusible Fleece (LOVE IT!) on the backside of the outer fabric, and I quilted the damask one with a cross-hatch pattern and the purple one with FMQ (it's not perfect, but I'm still learning!):

I'll fill it with some hospital must-haves and include it as a gift for her shower!

4. For Pink Sakes Blog Hop!
My friend Anna at Life Sew Crafty is hosting an awesome blog hop for an incredible cause. Her mother in law has been battling breast cancer, and Anna's decided to create a quilt for the treatment center her MIL visits for her treatment.

I've created two pink blocks already for the cause, here's the second one (first one posted about a few weeks ago):

second block I've made - just a simple 4-patch with some charm squares!

...and have already received one from an awesome bloggy friend, and I'll send it on to Anna.

If you're interested in donating a block, here are the specs:
- any size over 4"
- must be pink!

You can either contact Anna and send her your blocks, or, you can contact me and I'll send your block on along with mine and other's to Anna in the middle of July.

Every block you donate gets you an entry into win some awesome prizes!

Here's Anna's {LINK} for more information!

If you've made it THIS far, good for you! I'm long winded. Heheh.

I'm having a giveaway and contest right now - wanna win $25 to Fat Quarter Shop? go {here} and read how to enter!

Good morning all, and happy Monday!

If you follow my blog, you've probably seen me blathering on about this "new" machine I acquired off of eBay for $20. I've fixed all of the electrical components up myself, and had fun doing it!

It's a 1941 Singer, model 66-16. This particular machine was made on December 16, 1941, in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The Singer 66 is a low-shank, oscillating hook machine with a class 66 bobbin. The bobbin case is a drop-in style and sits to the left of the needle and because of this, the needle sits sideways in the shaft - i.e., the eye of the needle faces left to right instead of front to back like most modern machines. So when I thread the needle, I thread it from the left to the right instead of front to back.

an old Singer 66 Good Housekeeping advertisement image courtesy of http://singer66.blogspot.com/

The Singer 66 was first made in the early 1900's, and started out as a hand-crank or treadle, but by the 1930's the cost of electric motors had come down enough to make them more readily attainable (they would cost about 2 week's wages at that point). The machine only has one stitch - a straight stitch - although it does have a 'tack' feature (not a true backstitch, but  a tack). To purchase a 66 in the 'teens would have cost several month's wages. The Singer 66 was one of the most expensive sewing machines on the market for years, and was produced from the early 1900's into the 1950's, when it was replaced by a bigger, 'better' model, the Singer 201.

The Singer 66 has come with some gorgeous decals over the years it was produced; and, those machines made in the U.K. had differing decals than those produced here in the U.S.

U.K. version of a 66: Lotus decals (treadle)

U.S. version Singer 66 "Red Eye" image courtesy of brooksboysonline.com

...and here's my beaut:

I love the noseplate on this machine :)

the cabinet is in rough shape; I'll be refinishing it in June/July.

I've done a little bit of sewing on it, and man, the stitch is beautiful on it. Gorgeous.

So! Enough on the history lesson.

Let's have a bit of fun!

I need a name for her. She's so beautiful, she can't sit in the corner unnamed! And when the Fat Quarter Shop recently had a sale on their gift cards, I thought I'd pick one up for a future giveaway!

So! That future giveaway is here, now. :)

Wanna help name my machine?? Wanna chance to win a $25 Gift Card to the Fat Quarter Shop??

Here are the rules:

1. Use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter your name choice. You can log-in to the widget with a valid email address, you don't have to enter with a Facebook account.
2. The contest will be open for 1 week.
3. The winner will be determined by my hubby - he'll pick the best-suited name for my newest baby (it's only fair - I won out with the first two human kid's names, tee hee)
4. If there are multiple entries of the same name and that same name is the one he chooses, the winner will be chosen from those entries by random number generator.

>IF BY CHANCE MY SISTER IN LAW IS HERE, COME TO VISIT AND SIT A SPELL, GO AWAY PLEASE. LOL. THIS POST CONTAINS SURPRISES FOR YOU :D <

Welcome to WIP Wednesday. Where I never seem to get anywhere. LOL.

I promised myself at the beginning of the year I would sew more for myself. HA! Who was I kidding?! I crack myself up sometimes >chuckles<

... but the other people in my life are so worth it. So my WIP list grows!

Today I'll be linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced :)

In no particular order:

1. Singer 66-16 Project (continues):
Okay. So. I was so proud of myself when I managed to get the motor on my 1941 Singer 66-16 rewired and working. (If you want to read any of my previous posts on my shenanigans re-wiring the light, power switch, and wiring a foot pedal to it and disconnecting the knee bar, click {here}).

my workstation: an ancient tinfoil covered cookie sheet on top of our cube freezer.

All set up to solder the wires. Motor is on the left (the big black thing) and I have a Helping Hands clamp holding the base of the wire on the motor end (acts as a heat sink) and the other clamp holding the free end of the wire.

Wires all soldered together, heat shrink wrapped (color coded)

putting the motor back together, with a tidy underwriters knot to keep the wires out of the way of the fan blade.

ooh! look at all my new wiring coming out the back of that machine. motor is back on, ready to work away with the new belt.

I hooked up the motor, ran it for about 5 minutes while I oiled the heckadoodles out of the machine over and over, and

KA-PUT!

Motor died.

BLARGH!

Posted my predicament on Instagram and my awesome bloggy friend Lisa in Port Hope offered to send me her old Singer 99 motor she replaced because of some faulty wiring.

Sold! Motor on the way.

In the meantime, I contacted my Bee friend sfredette, who had commented on a previous post that if I ever needed help, I should drop her a line. Line dropped. Let's just say that she knows a *lot* about this kind of stuff...

sfredette is a *genius*.

I explained the situation to her - that I thought the motor was overheating, that it sounded great when it did run, etc.

She explained that the motor was probably getting too much voltage from the wall, given the fact that the motor was built for 1941 household wiring, not 2014 wiring. We needed to increase the resistance to decrease the voltage hitting the motor, which would take care of the overheating problem.

So! I put an extension cord with a dimmer switch built in between the wall and the motor:

DIMMA cord with dimmer, IKEA.

BAM! Works. Ran like a dream for a good 20 minutes with the power 'turned down'. The only problem is that when I 'dim' the power to the motor, the light on the machine dims as well. I may have to end up picking up a magnetic LED lamp or something. We'll see.

Next on the list is cleaning up this beauty (gah! >le sigh< - look at the (no doubt) 70-year old tape on the deck! NO! It'll probably strip the finish when I take it off (insert sad face here),


 sewing a few stitches and getting the tension just right. Oh. And I need to learn how to wind a bobbin with it.

2. Brown Bear Eye Spy Mat
It's all pinned up, mostly quilted, and will probably be ready to be bound today. I always find trying to decide how to quilt my quilts is always the hardest decision I have to make, so this slowed me a bit yesterday in actually finishing.


I decided to pick up some of this Quilter's Green Dream batting while it was on sale about a month back, thought I'd give it a try:

It's actually green (literally). It's made from recycled plastic bottles converted into the polyester batting.

I don't usually use poly batting - only cotton (or a combination therein). I have to say - I am not very pleased with it. I found that despite relatively heavy pinning, there was a lot of slippage and puckering going on. I don't think I'll buy it again - I'll spend an extra few pennies and go with my usual 100% cotton batting.

Anywho. My sister in law won't notice a few puckers, and my future baby niecey or nephew sure won't notice. Still. The perfectionist in me is itching to rip out a *whole lotta* stitches. But it kills me to do that when I used my blessed (limited supply of) Aurifil. Gah.

3. Baby Quilt:
Okay. So I've decided what I'm going to do with this panel:

I'm going to put triangles all the way around the outside, and then across the back. And I'll cray-cray it all up with some super fabulous quilting. I just don't know what kind of super fabulous quilting yet... heheh. I've started cutting triangles (on my lap at night on my June Tailor Quilter's Cut 'n Press II! hehe) while we sit and watch TV. Which, actually, has been great, since I *do love* a good chip bag, and the contents therein, and you can't cut triangles whilst consuming Kroger-brand Doritos rip-offs...

4. Car Seat Cover:
I managed to drag the family down to the local quilting hole (heheh - as apposed to a watering hole ;) ) to pick up some super fab buttons for my sister in law's car seat cover:

The fabric is a flannel from Joann - it's owls in reading glasses standing on books. She's a librarian, so I thought it was perfect. I bought some bright orange buttons to go on the handle straps. I'll post a finished pic of the cover when it's done.

5. Classic meets Modern June & July Blocks:
Blargh! Need to get a move on with this. I've got the fabrics pulled, and cut...

If you've made it this far - BRAVO! Have you entered my Sew Mama Sew Giveaway yet? >here<

Busy Bee, I've been.

Here we go with a works-in-progress post for the link-up at Freshly Pieced! Some weeks I am not sure why I post, LOL. The listing of works yet to be fini only seems to give me a bit of anxiety...but then again, it's great motivation to get this butt in gear!

in no particular order...

1) Blockin' it, "Brown Bear" style:
Not sure if you've ever heard of the children's book by Bill Martin Jr. & Eric Carle, but it was a classic when I was a kid, and now my kids are lovin' that cray-cray art too.

image courtesy of Wikipedia

I make these eye-spy quilts for the kiddies in my life, and now that my sister in law is expecting, she'll be getting one as a gift at her baby shower (A., I hope you're not reading this...if you are, cover your eyes :p )

I managed to get a top done yesterday and the blocks for a second top (for the Etsy store) done:

I always have fun quilting these mats. More on this soon.

2) Habit-making

Image courtesy of Fanpop.com

I was literally making habits last week with my milliner friend, Elizabeth. (A milliner is someone who makes hats/headpieces/masks, etc.). She's a costume designer by trade but specializes in hats.

Anyway, I helped her for a few days over the last few weeks to make nun habits for a Sound of Music run here in Chicago at the Lyric Opera House.

I always love helping her out. Last year I helped her with a gold-lame headpiece for a Flash Dance production here in Chicago. My retinas were burning by the end of it, all that gold shine. LOL.

Today I'm helping her out with some sort of tool-vests for physio robots at a local university? I think? She does some weird stuff. I love it. I always learn something!

3) The Singer 66-16 Project
So, if you've been following along with this, I've officially re-wired the light and the electrical cord, and wired a new foot pedal to replace the knee bar in the cabinet. (for my previous posts, click {here})

Last thing to do (wiring-wise) is the motor. But I've been too chicken so far to do it. I've been practicing sistering my wires and soldering them:

Sorry for the blurry pic, it's hard to focus on that skinny wiring. I think my solder is *pretty* good, but could be better. So I'll continue practicing. But I think I'm doing pretty well...

4) Baby Quilt Shenanigans
I think I finally have a plan for this quilt panel my SIL wants incorporated into her baby quilt. I have to admit, having to use a panel has thrown me a bit, I'm not used to having such a...structured?...element to my quilts... but it's cute, so I can see why she likes it!

I've been up to all sorts of shenanigans here lately.

Today my hubby took the kids for the morning; he walked to the grocery store with them and made dinner (don't be player hatin' ladies hehehe) while I....

...re-wired the light fixture, power cord, and disconnected the knee bar and wired in a new foot pedal on my Singer 66-16. (My phone died before I could take pics of the new cord and pedal. You'll have to believe me on this one for now until I can get a card reader for my camera up and running...)

pretty proud of myself for heat shrink wrapping a whole wack o' wires!

I got the light re-attached:

.... and put a light-bulb back in and plugged her in and BAM! We have light.

No fire. No shock. No sparks.

BOO YA.

>>insert a crazy-woman happy dance here<<

The Gorilla Glue seems to be holding the broken pieces of the socket base on the light well. For now. But I'll still be really gentle with it. If it breaks on me I'll have to think more about replacing the piece with an after-market replacement.

Now I'm working up the courage to start soldering new wires into the old motor:
... there is one wire that is completely bare (far right in the picture) and the wire that does still have sheathing on it is crumbling.

More on this soon. Wish me luck.

I didn't even really think about it, but my husband was laughing over dinner tonight about our gender role reversals. Him taking the kids grocery shopping, then making dinner, me, busy re-wiring and doing electrical work.

So. No "pink" (girl) or "blue" (boy) jobs in our house. Just purple. :)

Tomorrow it's back to him being the breadwinner and me the stay at home mom.

A nice balance, me thinks.

Happy Saturday, everyone!

What's everyone been up to?

Today my husband and I took the kids out for a nice long walk up to the UPS store (our PS3 bit the dust last year, and I just discovered that you can trade your old electronics and books, etc., in on Amazon.com for gift cards; last week we sent in our old cell phones and a text book of hubby's for some Amazon.com gift cards...every penny counts...who knows how much we'll get for all of this, but we're not out anything since they pay the shipping - woot!)

all dressed up and ready to go out on an adventure!

Anywho.

We also hit World Market (man, I freaking LOVE that store, I could spend hours in there... not only for all of the housewares/decorating stuff, but for the Canadian and British candies/foods we can get there - YUM) because I wanted to pick up some new knobs for the sewing machine table my $20 Singer 66-16 is in. I plan on refinishing the table when my mum comes back to visit in June. That kinda stuff is right up her alley. I picked up these knobs:

image courtesy of World Market.com

Image courtesy of World Market.com

for the two doors on the front of the cabinet. I love the pretty turquoise color accented with the nickel. I'm trying to stay Art-Deco-ish since the table and machine are from '41. Not sure if I'm super period appropriate with these knobs, probably should have gone with glass, but, I digress.

Speaking of the Singer 66, I've had a fabulous response from all of my readers about my shenanigans with respect to my refurbishing project, which I really appreciate.

I would say that about 65% of my readers are around my age (thirties and forties), and it makes me really excited to be so very encouraged about fixing this 73-year old machine up by a generation of sewists and quilters who have electronic computerized machines (myself included!) which cost more than my first car (true!) and do everything but wash the dishes.

I'm proud of myself for doing this. How many women own their own soldering guns? know what a commutator is? know how to wrap a wire with polyolefin 2:1 heat shrink tubing?

I do. Because I read a few manuals, did a bit of research, spent a few pennies, and I'm getting my hands a little dirty.

I may completely, 100% fail at this project, but at least I wasn't scared to try. And hopefully in the process I saved a beautiful machine from an untimely demise (because who knows what would have happened to her if I hadn't been lucky enough to find her on eBay).

And who knows?

Hopefully this beaut will be around another 73 years, and my daughter (or future daughter-in-law) will be sewing with it long after I'm gone.

I'll continue to blog about this, and will try to update weekly about it. But the point of this little tangent is this:

if I can do it, you can do it. :) And thank you, thank you, thank you! for all of your awesome emails and comments with respect to "The Singer 66-16 Project" here at Sew at Home Mummy.

So! On that note: a little update.

I wish I had taken a picture of these light pieces before I took the medical tape holding them all together apart. And the sticky gunk that was left behind was unreal; pulled out the Goo Gone.

(blue painter's tape is just to hold the pieces together while the glue dries).

My new wiring came in the mail yesterday from Sew Classic (I bought 18g SPT-2 for the light, electric cord, and foot pedal cord, and 18g SPT-1 for the motor re-wiring). Just waiting for my ring terminal ends to come in the mail so that I can start re-wiring stuff.

the Singer 66-16 Project is to be continued... stay tuned...

Now! I have a question for my readers, and need your help.

Do any of you have a quilting frame for your home sewing machine? Not a long-arm?

And by a frame, I mean one like this (only as an example, I know there are other brands out there, but this one seems to be the most popular in my searches):

image courtesy of The Grace Company

does anyone out there have one of these?

As some of you may know, money is super tight here - we're trying desperately to save for a house on a single income. As such, we have a tight budget for things, but, we do allot ourselves a small amount of spending money every paycheck. So for big things, I need to save for a while...and this would be a big purchase.

If you have one of these quilting frames for your home machine, I'd love to ask you some questions about it; I can't seem to find much info or more than one or two bloggers whom have written about the frames.

I feel like if I'm going to try and save this much money over the next year or two to buy one of these frames I really need to research it because I'll be really peeved (< editing here) if I buy one and it's a pain in the tookish to use or doesn't work well, etc.

Thanks in advance to anyone who may be able to help me out on this one!


please note that this post contains affiliate links (to Amazon.com) and in accordance with FTC law, I must disclose this.