Pink is cool

Last year my mother gave each of her daughters a sewing machine. The machine I picked was an old Singer that had been converted to electric and was just a simple straight stitch machine. No fancy bells or whistles, just put the fabric under the foot and try to keep it straight. I probably picked it more for the simplicity of the machine rather than the value of it being my grandmother's machine. I also picked it over the other machines due to this one being a table top and not in a cabinet. At the time I just didn't have the room and figured I wouldn't use it often. Whatever the reason was I walked away with a nice sewing machine to do the rare occasional sewing projects with.

About a month later after I got the Singer sewing machine my mother informed me that she had another sewing machine for me. Apparently she found this in an antique store at a good price and couldn't pass it up. It was an old Kenmore sewing machine and had more features than the Singer did, plus it was pink. I was intrigued. Pink is one of my favorite colors but what kind of pink. Retro pink from the 50's? Cotton candy pink from the 70's or was it brighter than 80's fluorescent pink? I went to my parents one weekend and walked away with this.
A 1950's Kenmore dusty rose pink sewing machine and weighs 500 tons (ok maybe not that much but it is quite heavy). A simple little machine with some major coolness to it, I've recovered my living room pillows, repaired clothing, made curtains for the bathroom and kitchen. Since receiving this machine I've done more sewing in the last few months than I have ever really done in my life. Did I get the sewing bug? No but apparently my middle sister Terrie did and has been busy taking a quilting class these last couple of months. I must have gotten a little sewing bug since I will be joining them on a Quilt Shop Hop this coming weekend hitting many different stores in several towns in southern Missouri and northern Arkansas. This will be a test of my mothering skills in seeing how well I can keep a two year old entertained while being dragging in and out of the car all day while trying to knit on my own projects. Plus if we see a yarn store along the way, they have been order to stop.

A couple of weekends ago, I showed up for a visit at my parents home and discovered a sewing cabinet in the process of being refinished for me.
It had an older Kenmore sewing machine in the cabinet but wasn't in good condition. It's a nice old cabinet that has a retro 50's flare to it so I immediately loved it . So it now looks like I will have a nice cabinet to put my pink sewing machine in and store any accessories as well. I still don't have the room for a cabinet machine but it will go well with my furniture once it's done. Now when I do sew, I don't have to clear off the dinning room table to do it.

Old school

When all else fails, do it old school.
This is a 2-ply Mauch Chunky wool on my Schacht drop spindle. It was spun into singles on the Babe spinning wheel but for some reason I wasn't in my plying groove Sunday night and yet again on Monday night. No matter what adjustments I made, I wasn't getting it right. I was wasting time and ruining my singles in the process. Total mess. No amount of soaking, adding weights or other tricks to get the over twist out would have helped on my stuff. Frustrated, I cut off the offending yarn and tossed it into the trash. I was to the point of just ignoring the singles and moving on to something else when I stopped myself and saw my spindle. There it was on the coffee table sitting between the empty popcorn bowl and a Minnie Mouse puzzle. At that moment I felt like Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone With The Wind" when she became empowered and declared she was never going hungry again. I picked up my spindle and declared I was never going to waste my singles. I wrapped the single around my hand for some Andean plying and about 20 minutes later I had a very nice 2-ply yarn with balance. Granted I know there are some spinners out there who are probably in shock with the idea of going back to a spindle to finish a single up when there is a perfectly good wheel just sitting there and I just needed to keep trying to find out what was going wrong and.....well that's just silly to me, after all the drop spindle taught me to spin in the first place. My wheel is great and is much faster than the drop spindle but there are reasons for me to go back to it now and again. One reason is simple, my 2-ply yarn on the drop looks much better than it did on the wheel, go figure? It may take me a bit longer to finish up the Mauch Chunky wool but it will get done.