Singer 20U Professional

 It's a story. M. loves to make art quilts. She finds pictures of human body organs (think heart, kidney, lungs, cancer cells) and uses applique and thread painting to create wall hangings. She does flowers too.  She started out with a Singer 237. Then something went apeshit with the motor on that machine. I switched it out for a Vintage White 1099 Jeans Machine. She did really well with that. One day she declared that she was done with the White. "It's messing up the thread, I can't get it to stitch right, I just don't like it."

Of course everyone who does what she does (art quilts) has a Bernina 800 series. Yeah, no. 

She wants: needle positioner, needle up and down, zig zag, straight stitch, and feed dogs that drop to allow for free motion quilting. This is not an impossible list. Such a machine is available with additional stuff that she doesn't need; i.e. 300 decorative stitches and an automatic butttonholer. She also has an aversion to plastic computerized machines. I taught her well.

Ultimately we came to the conclusion that a Singer 20U with a servo motor and needle up/down positioner would work. We found a Singer 20 (a blue one, it's reportedly the best) on Craigslist. True, it had the clutch motor. I was sure changing that out would not be a problem.

I know some things about machines. I was thoughtless when it came to testing this 20U. Oh, it stitched. It stitched well, until it didn't. It jammed and would not budge. It wasn't the motor. That was fine. Nope. This thing felt like it had a thread nest. We did spend some time spraying Tri-flow on all the gears. They looked dirty, but fine. I took off the top, I looked at the bottom. Squirt, spray, nothing. I did not look at the hook. 

I brought it home. The seller was stuck. No way could they sell that machine in this condition and I really wanted it. Don't judge. We agreed that if it magically started working when I got it home, I would send him a reduced price. If it didn't and I couldn't get it working, he wanted the machine back. 

Right. 

You know that as soon as we got home,  I took off the needle plate, tipped it back on it's side and removed the bobbin case. I doused that hook with oil and slowly got it to turn, just a bit. Holy moly, no wonder it jammed. That hook and race was a fucking mess. 

I had estimated that it would take me ten hours to get this machine stitching again. The seller balked at that estimate. It took longer. Maybe if I had been more methodical, or if I took the hook off the shaft (I tried) it wouldn't have take as long. 

Even this is not as clean as it ended up. 

Did I learn anything from this escapade? Not yet. I'm still rescuing machines. I saw   a 1960s Bernina Industrie listed in New Jersey. Not gonna happen. This 20U is stitching. I'm gonna tinker with it some more. I have needles coming soon. I have a new bobbin case on hand. My dream is to get it set up so M. can continue her journey in art quilts. 

Finished. Green Moda Grunge binding. Moving along. 

Off the Frame

 

I had just starting FMQ around the flowers when the tension went WACKO. Yep, I had run out of bobbin thread. My Nolting CLX doesn't have a warning for a low bobbin or empty bobbin. Despite my chronic tinnitus, I can hear the difference in the machine when the bobbin runs out. I don't sew for very long without bobbin thread. I do, however, sew a long time when I run out of bobbin thread on the 201 or the 301. That's maddening. Some folks wind two bobbins and use one on top of these vintage machines so that when the top runs low, that means the bobbin is running low, too. Not me. 

I finished quilting EW today. Oh dear, those are unfortunate initials. They do, however, appropriately describe my feelings toward this particular project. I have been unhappy almost from the start. I am a finisher and I persisted. I practiced ruler work with a circle ruler from Quilter's Apothecary  My initial stitches were pretty bad, just too messy and I did not like the design. I unzipped the quilt from the frame so that I was able to sit on the couch to rip much of it out. Surprisingly the quilt zipped back on to the frame easily. Probably because it was a small quilt. I had never done that before. Kinda chuffed (they say that in the UK) that they worked so well. I finished all of the hexagons first and then went back to do the FMQ on the panel. 

The dense quilting on the panel will hold the added batting in place in the center. I wonder if it will bunch up under the hexagons after washing. Since it is a wall hanging, I imagine I can press it out if so.  

I took this photo in the ambient light from the small basement window.  I like it now that it is quilted. The echo quilting inside the panel was relaxing. I did use stitch regulation for the whole quilt. I have to for ruler work. My machine does not have an automatic needle down which would be a VNF(very nice feature). I am learning how to keep from stitching inadvertently when I shift the ruler. Every quilt is a lesson. 

I will bind it with some Moda Green Grunge I bought today. It's pretty much a perfect match to the leaves. I dunno, this panel did end up pretty much how I imagined it might look after all. Close enough.

I did it again

 

I am not fond of this flimsy. I bought it when visiting Asheville, NC at Asheville Cotton Company. The panel caught my eye and it was on sale. So I bought eight, because I couldn't buy seven. I should hae cut the strips smaller so that the hexagons would be smaller. I didn't. I struggled with the layout, I couldn't fit the panel in the center without adding back some of the border. I didn't give up. I persisted. I call this quilt my Elizabeth Warren quilt. 

The flimsy is 46 long by 48 wide. I had some leftover batting to use up. When I got far enough into the quilting, it was time to add the batting. Usually I like to sew batting together with a zig zag. My Kenmore 1158-1814 is not sewing well. It bunches the batting as I sew. 

I lined up the batting pieces, overlapping the edges. I drew a cutting line and then cut the two pieces. 

Then I smoothed out the batting and went back to quilting. 

It will work. I think the bobbin tension is too tight in the 1814. I'll mess with that and update you all. 

I know that my previous post showed this same technique in an abbreviated form. Just thought some of you might appreciate the step by step. 

Serpentine experiment

 

I pieced this batting on the Kenmore 158.1814. It looked great coming off the machine and when I placed it on the fleece backing on the frame. By the time I landed here in the quilting it was a wrinkled mess. Shit. I cut out the stitching and trimmed up both edges. Then I overlapped the edges and drew a serpentine line along the edge and cut it out. 

It's not the neatest cutout. I hope that the batting stays put. I quilted over it but my design is quite large, so...... 

I finished this baby quilt in just over an hour with just over one bobbin. Some of the flowers are wonky but, hey, I had fun doing it. As my son says, "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good." 

I chose a hot pink thread to stand out on the yellow. It blended well with the blocks and I had some trouble seeing as I worked. Had I turned off the lights and worked in the shadows, I think it would have been easier. We learn by doing. 

I enjoy working with fleece backing. This will be a cozy blanket for the baby when she is old enough for blankets. Right now she is still in utero, as they say in OB. 

Foul Mouthed Quilter

 I now have a  dot com called FMQStudios.  M. named me that after she spent enough time in the studio on the longarm listening to me swear with increasing ferocity as I pieced a quilt. I don't even remember which one it was. Almost all my quilts start out as "the quilt." As I grow weary of the tedious piecing, "the quilt" becomes "the g__ Da__ quilt." Finally, as I stitch on the borders, it has morphed into "the g-- Da-- F------ quilt."  I created a FB page called FMQStudios for some odd reason. Did I think I wanted to create a business? Dunno. https://www.facebook.com/LizzyKateBetz

Today it was the perfect August day. Sunny, breezy, and agreeable temperatures. That meant that the She Shed was habitable.  I spent several hours up there stitching a practice french braid strip. I have so so so so so many scraps. I also managed to put together a 6 by 6 leaders and enders block. I wish I had the tidy gene.

Last week I cleared off the 31-15 so that I could use it to bind my most recent quilt, a Round About (pattern by Donna Jordan). I love this machine. It is almost 120 years old and is in it's original treadle stand with extension table. I managed to coordinate my feet and right knee so that the balance wheel stays put when I use the knee lift mechanism. There is no back tack. I start to stitch and then simply lift the presser foot with my knee and hitch it back a couple of stitches. Works like a charm. 

 

In this photo I am piecing some 3 1/2 inch vintage pre-cut squares. I found out that the 1/4 inch mark on the 31-15 is actually more like 3/16.  No problem unless you want a true 1/4 inch seam. Which I did when I sewed the binding on to the Round About quilt. Sigh. 

Squeaky Nolting

 I have a Nolting CLX 20 Long-arm. I keep a log to track hours since needle change and last oiling. It was time to oil today. I dutifully dropped one drop of oil onto each of the oil wick ports on the top of the machine head this afternoon. When I turned on the machine for warm-up I heard a distinct squeak. It drove me absolutely nuts. I waited a few minutes to see if oil would reach this squeak. Nope. 

This squeak was clearly a cry for lubrication. I cut the power to the machine, turned the hand-wheel and could hear a whisper of a squeak in two spots of the full turn of the wheel.  The wick ports were wet with oil. I decided that I had to get to the innards. 

Now, the front of the Nolting has 6 hex screws that holds the front plate and light bar in place. Two of them are located beneath the light bar, you can't see them in this photo.  The two on the left side of the photo below also hold in the back side plate.

Back Side plate. 

I have removed the front plate in the past. It requires disconnecting the electrical harness for the light and switches. It's a bit difficult to re-connect the harness so I would prefer not to disconnect that. I discovered that if I removed the two screws on the left side of the front, I could remove the back side plate. Easy. I was able to access the innards.

This makes me happy. I like to be able to see the working parts of a machine. PS,  I disconnected the power before I removed any screws. I also took out the needle. The wicks were wet and reaching their respective targets. The machine wasn't dusty with lint. As I turned the hand-wheel I oiled all the parts I could see. I don't have any idea where the squeak was but it went away. I buttoned everything back up and was back to quilting. 

That squeak might have gone away eventually but I like to dismantle sewing machines and I needed a distraction from quilt design. This scrappy quilt has been a challenge. At least today I accomplished something.