A Little Stitching and Mother's Day

Monday was my little quilt guild's meeting.  My little guild is making 14+ quilts for a boys home and for a girls home.  Each month, at least one person gives out kits to make blocks and we bring the completed blocks back the next month.  These are the blocks I turned in.

2 blocks for a girls quilt

2 sports themed blocks for a boy

Since we are a very small guild, most months different members teach different techniques or projects.  Monday, Janel taught English Paper Piecing.  She gave everyone a kit to make a hexie flower, and instructions on how she does EPP, along with links to several different ways to do EPP.  We didn't finish our hexies at the meeting (not enough time) so, I finished mine later in the week, while watching TV. 

my hexie

I think I'll turn mine into a pin cushion.  I've made hexies before, but, it was fun getting to pick a kit, and make it with the group.  Some of the ladies haven't done this before.

Another lady from this group gave me a bag full of bobbins and attachments earlier this year.  I finally went thru the bag.  I have some high shank feet (no high shank machines), a few low shank feet (those will be used) and several different types of bobbins.  I quickly pulled out the standard class 15 and class 66 bobbins.  I use those all the time with my different Singer machines.  There were more than a dozen bobbins that were strange.  They look like a class 15 bobbin on one side, and a class 66 bobbin on the other side.  I took a picture, with one side up and the other side showing,  (next to each other).  The bobbin on the bottom is also unfamiliar to me.  I've seen them, and have more somewhere, but, I don't know what machine they would be used with.  Do either of these look familiar to you???

top bobbins are the same (flipped to show both sides) bottom bobbin is different

I've been wanting a heavy duty shelf in my basement, to hold some of my machines.  Hubby and I went to Menard's this morning, and picked this one up.

new heavy duty shelf

While hubby assembled the shelving, I started pulling machines out of the garage, and dusting the sawdust off of them (hubby likes to play with wood, like I like to play with old machines).  I've had quite a few machines sitting in the garage for a long time.  Several of them don't work, or have parts missing, etc. 

I was given several 'junkers' at the NETX TOGA 2 years ago.  A lady from my large quilt guild wanted to make a tractor with a junker machine, in exchange for her working treadle head.  The nice people at the TOGA provided me with 4 junker machines. 

I've put all the machines from the garage, and a couple more machines, on the shelf already.  I still have lots of room left, so, some of the machines that are stacked upstairs will come down, and live on the shelf. 

my new sewing machine shelf

See, two and a half shelves are still empty.  No, I don't plan on going out and buying more machines just to fill up the shelves.  Some of my machines upstairs are hard to get to, so, they will fill the extra places.  If I can't get to them, then I can't clean them or sew on them. 

I've been trying to go thru my machines, to make a record of each machine.  I've been recording the serial numbers, models, where I got them, etc.  It takes a long time to do this. I even have info for several machines that I don't have anymore. While documenting machines, I've discovered quite a few that I'd forgotten that I have.  It's been fun 'finding' new machines that I didn't remember having. I still have quite a few machines to document. 

I'm loving my Mother's Day present.  Hopefully I'll get to actually sew some on Mother's Day.  Playing with machines is a good alternative. 

Happy Mother's Day!