Featherweight Maintenance Class

On this past Saturday I took a class to learn how to maintain my little Featherweight sewing machine.

I learned SO much at this class.  

There were quite a few people in the class.  

Several, like me, had not even taken the machine out of the case! 

 We even had one lady that was an original owner.  

She has a white FW and her folks bought it for her for her high school graduation.  

(I'm looking for a white one if you know anyone selling one)

We had to take ours apart and the instructor, Jean Dalton, taught us how to clean, and oil/grease all the guts of the machine.  

We learned some history too.  

The first place we needed to get at was the top by the spool pin.  

Son and of gun, wouldn't you know that my screw wound NOT un-screw!  

What was that about??  

She never had one that she couldn't open. 

 HUH. 

 So we put some oil on it and waited while we proceeded. 

 Isn't Jean so adorable in her apron?  

You can find her on her blog over at jdquilts123 .  

She was an amazing instructor!

This is a photo of my Featherweight.  

She was born December 9, 1948 and her name is Ella.

Ella was my grandma's name.

She was a quilter too, but I never got to know her.

She died when I was only 2.

 Well, I ended up cleaning her up and getting her purring like a kitten. 

 I had to send her home with Jean and the screw did finally un-screw, so she cleaned up the top.  

I will be picking her up at the Featherweight club meeting in February.  I am so excited!

One lady had a thing to use with your foot pedal to make it work more like a modern pedal.  

The vintage machines have the weird knob off to one side 

so your foot has to kind of rock side to side.  

The modern pedals rock more heel to toe.  

Jean sells a similar one on her website that her son makes.

This is what it looks like opened up. 

 You then insert your foot pedal into the holes you see on the right side. 

Then you flip up the other part and when you depress that it presses the little knob down.

It functions by the heel to toe motion.

I thought it was pretty slick!

I am so thrilled to know what oil/grease to use and how to upkeep my little machine.  

It has emboldened me to try to oil and grease some of my other vintage machines 

and get them into top top shape.

Do any of you do maintenance on your vintage machines?  If so do you have any good tips?

~XOP~

I Don't Even Know Where To Begin

I know I have been awol lately but I have been BUSY!!  The fun began on Wednesday when I received the Featherweight that I bought on Ebay.  I am in love with her.  So beautiful!  Here let me introduce you to her.

She is a beauty!! She also came with a ton of accessories!

I bet you want to know if she can sew though, right? Well after a LOT of time trying to get the bobbin thread to come up I finally got a chance to try her out. She did not disappoint! Perfect stitch!!

I barely had time to play with her and I had to leave for Wed night quilting. I didn't stay long though as DH and I were going to go to Shipshewana on Thursday...early! Time to pack.

We got up early and headed out. It is about a 2 and a half hour drive but we really enjoy going and spending the day. I usually spend a lot of time at the quilt shops, but I did pretty well this trip. I did visit the shops but I didn't spend much. I had just recently bought from several places and didn't feel that I needed a lot. I was looking for some navies to use in an upcoming project though and managed to score a few great finds on this trip. Shipshewana also had a quilt show going on that weekend so I have loads of photos from the show. I won't be able to upload them all here but if you go to my Flickr you can see them all and who they were made by too. I think we will start with pictures from the show.
This quilt and this one were made by the same woman, Rosemary Youngs of Walker, Michigan (where I grew up!!) The first one was quilted by Tammy Finkler, the other one by Rosemary.

This quilt won the best in show award. It was beautiful! By Barbara Perrin, Pullman Michigan. You need to see this up close on my Flickr.

Those were the ones I liked the best, but there are a whole lot more in Flickr. Now more of my trip. WE found the best doughnut shop (Bread Box Bakery) and here is DH enjoying his.

There were flowers, fairy gardens and buggies everywhere. Even quilts hung all over the Davis Mercantile!

I even found this young lady waiting for a dip! I LOL right in the shop when I spotted her!

DH even managed to snap my picture too, as we were going into the Fairy Garden.

Everyone kept asking us if we were from Lansing and we couldn't figure it out until we realized that he was wearing his Spartan hat and I had on my Spartan jacket!! HAHA

Ok, I kept you waiting long enough, here are the things I got while there:


We ended up leaving there and heading over to Sauder Village in Ohio to spend the night. I will pick up there tomorrow. I still have LOTS more to tell you but I need to go and clean the bathroom. We are having some company tonight. I am also hoping to get into the sewing room to do some cutting today. Have a good Sunday! ~XOP~