We're having our mid-summer Colorado get together. We've had a mix of dry sunny days and several cloudy days with rain. Summer is a truly great time to be in Colorado.
We have submissions from a few of our members. We'll start off with Leon.
Leon
Leon, who we call our member-at-large from Kansas, sends us these notes about his activities:
It has been a busy month in Kansas. We have been busy doing demos. We had a weekend at a folk life festival. We spent two Mondays with a kids Pioneer camp and had bunches of kids trying out our Singer 99 hand cranks. We spent a Friday morning with about 20 kids at a local library with other helpers. We had 4 99s and a VS 28. Whew. Next month will be much calmer.
At the folk life festival the potter had a Singer 99 that was gummy. 2 hours later I had it stitching for her. The Pioneer camp was in Abilene. A new VSM friend met us after our gig and had me check out a plastic WHITE for her. I looked it over and made a list of pieces she needed. Then we took one of our hand cranks into the restaurant. (hmm, sounds familiar). She loved using it and asked all sorts of questions. She had said she had found a black Singer along the road and was going to give it to us as a thank you. OK, we went outside and looked into her hatchback.
Nice cabinet. We opened the lid and looked through the dust. Oh could it be? Yes! It was another 99 in a 3/4 cabinet. We told her that she needed to keep it and to bring it back to life. Such a delight. She is well on her way to having her own hand crank now.
If you go to the Facebook page "Merry Cranks" you can see photos and videos of the our events.
James
James sends us these notes about his fairly active month:
I have has quite a month with sewing related collecting. The big catch of course is my Singer 24-80 sewing machine from 1921. It is fully running with some shellac loss but decals are in good shape and the wiring looks safe. The pedal was only made in 1936 and the case appears to be a type 5 featherweight style. It is missing the little cap on top of the needle bar but that does not affect the sewing.
I also collected a Singer Automatic Zigzagger box with four red top cams. The box was marked 301 so it was probably sold along with a Singer 301. It also came with 7 flat cams and a manual for the Singer 328k and 3 different presser feet. A much more modern walking short shank foot was included as well.
I am joining in a shirt sew along so I am sure I will learn a lot about reading patterns, tracing patterns, making adjustments for fitting. I have selected the Men's All Day shirt pattern from Liesl and Co. I have not selected the final fabric yet but have already gathered some muslin for fitting and alteration adjustments as well as sewing thread and tools needed.
James
to be continued...