My Featherweight sewing machine is finally up and running. I brought it to the quilt retreat last week because I knew that Debra Johnston, whose husband Johnny is The Old Sewing Machine Man, would be at the retreat. She uses these machines often. So I relied on her assistance to set up and thread my machine. She had a few pointers and also loaned me the wonderful acrylic sewing table, which they sell, seen in the photo above. It fits the machine nicely and really makes a generous surface for piecing blocks. I had several straight stitch projects to work on, so this was a good time to make friends with my Featherweight. I'm glad I did. These little workhorses are so light that they are easy to carry to sewing sessions and classes. So I'm very happy the machine is now seeing the light of day. When we looked the machine over, we discovered a seal on it indicating that it was made during the centennial year for Singer, 1951.
Mine was not the only Featherweight on retreat either. Debra had hers, at left, and was using a vintage sewing table with it. Norma Jean nearly always uses hers, and she stitched the cute Cat In The Hat quilt seen at the bottom of this post, for a relative. And I used mine to stitch some of the Sticks blocks, made using insertion strips, that I showed in this post.
Those sticks blocks are showing up all over the place it seems. Arlene pieced several at the retreat, and added them to her "Friends" quilt, shown at left. And there happened to be a group of 8 art quilters who were also on retreat at the conference center. We enjoyed touring their sewing room to see what they were working on. Once again, I spotted blocks with insertion strips, wavy and bright. 
2 comments:
Featherweights are wonderful! yours is a celebrated issue in fine shape. i have 3 so i am sure they are great. one went to college with me a machine my mother bought in the 50's and it still sews fine. my sister in law went to an auction and the box they bid on had this late 1940s model in it . it is a jewel i use it daily! a white UK model found at a goodwill for 25 bucks needed a bobbin case and tune up and has gone to outer islands and helped teach many a young lady sewing 101. i leave one up for piece work,covered with towel at night. and they go off to retreat so easily. before the airlines got so restrictive, i would pack up my paints and brushed inside to teach classes off island as i could hand carry her aboard. plus they are so tidy and work forever. yea!
fun to see so many FWs in one place. I brought mine to my last retreat and it got lots of attention for being "old". it is a 222K built in 1956.
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