Dianne
Dianne has been doing a bit of quilting and also tells us about some interesting templates used for cutting pieces. She writes:
The Hamilton Ross machine got a workout last week, piecing two small 38" square quilts. They are a simple design of four scrappy 16-patch blocks, framed, then with sashing and border. Nothing at all fancy, but a test for this machine to see how it would manage. It did well, making a neat chain stitch with some occasional slight variation in tension, hardly visible but I was looking closely. The little motor mounted on the back showed no signs of distress, even when punching through several layers of fabric. These were quilted on my Singer 15-91, SID and FM both. A fun project.
A small backroad in the history of quilting is metal templates. My grandmother used to cut cardboard templates, which wore down and after a bit were not true to size and needed to be replaced. I'm sure that was annoying. One of my sisters relates that someone made her linoleum templates for one pattern, and she enjoyed those. So on eBay and Etsy some metal (galvanized steel) templates showed up and I purchased a set for making a flying geese block. They were made by Roy Daniel, of Camden, Maine. The exact time frame is unknown to me, but a note on QB relates contact with Mr. Daniel's grandson, who helped with the project in 1982 - 1984, so 1980s vintage will suffice. These are neatly made templates, intended to be drawn around and then have a seam allowance added. They are backed with sandpaper so they won't slip. I opened and photographed the contents of the package, and then neatly restapled it, having no intention to use the templates, although one certainly could.
Dianne
John
Last month John had a curiosity about the types of fabric feed mechanisms.
Thank you to all, especially Dorothy, for adding to the knowledge of feed mechanisms. Much appreciated.
In Closing
Thank you to all for reading. We will post here again next month. Wishing everyone a good last month of summer!