We hope that everyone had a good Memorial Day weekend, wherever you may be. It is the time that many of us think of as the beginning of summer.
Colorado has certainly had a variety of weather. During May it went from nearly ninety degrees one day to several inches of very wet snow the next. As is typical of Colorado, the snow was completely gone on the following day. Despite some broken tree limbs, we needed the moisture and we are once again looking forward to summer.
We have news, notes and pictures from our members to share. We'll start with Courtney.
Courtney
Courtney sent us some notes about his activities earlier in the month. Unfortunately Courtney experienced a health issue later in the month, which he tells us about. We all wish him the best for a speedy recovery.
Towards the beginning of the month, I continued on with my treadle Featherweight project of the last couple of months. I had an old New Home treadle up at the shop and found it had a weighted drive wheel so I thought it would be perfect! I cleaned it up and put an old Singer No. 40 cabinet top on it. I brought it home and set the Featherweight on it. I used some of the old plastic oxygen tubing as a drive belt. The oxygen tubing has a bit of stretch which means I do not have to cut it exactly each time I try something new. The treadle worked well, and I could easily get the Featherweight sewing with the treadle.
I did learn something however; every treadle has its own treadling characteristics. I really enjoyed treadling the Featherweight when it was on one of my Willcox and Gibbs treadles but, the New Home was quite different. For some reason, the New Home treadle just did not seem to have the right rhythm. I did notice that the foot pedal was mounted differently. The W&G foot pedal axis goes right through the center of the pedal while the New Home pedal is mounted so the axis is about 1/3 to 3/4 of the way down the pedal. This meant the edge of the pedal closest to you does not seem to move as much as the W&G pedal. I though this might be making the difference. While there is no way I can easily change the foot pedal I thought that shortening the pitman rod might make a difference. The pitman rod is wooden, and I had already replaced the original broken one so I thought I could just make a new shorter one.
Before I could get to the shop and get to work real life intruded. Things have been quite hectic the last two to three of weeks. At the last minute, Connie was asked to be the virtually host the Nebula Awards on the 21st and that meant two weeks of trying to get a better WiFi connection, a better webcam and microphone, and a more powerful computer. Fortunately, the Physics department at UNC came through and things went well.
On the 24th I had to go to the hospital and have a stent inserted into left atrium of my heart. I am doing quite well but haven't got to any of my sewing machine projects since. Hopefully, next month will be much more tranquil!
Oh, I almost forgot. Each year our local library has a small quilt contest. I am pleased to say I got an Honorable Mention.
Leon
Leon, our roving member from Kansas, sent some notes and interesting pictures of his recent findings:
I was going to say that this month had been pretty quiet with maintenance and messing about. However, Friday found me driving 17 miles to pick up this Franklin 117.851. Manual and accessories but I fell in love with the travel case. Pretty wild stuff. It rolls by hand and I will mess with it later. Then yesterday GF and I were out and about and she talked me into going to a least favorite thrift.. Oh lookee here. Necchi Supernova came home. Looks intact except for controller. Should be fun.
to be continued...