OurWorkbench

Lisa continued

I have a couple of upcoming speaking events. On Oct. 25 I will be presenting a talk at the Colorado Quilt Council about basic sewing machine function and maintenance and how to keep your machine out of the shop and when it really does need professional attention. Then on Nov. 9 I will be doing the “Sunday at the Museum” at the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum. I guess they felt guilty about cutting my presentation short last year. ?? My talk will be about the evolution of the sewing machine, concentrating less on the political history of its development (like last time) and more on functional machine components and how they evolved.

A special thank you to Gary for giving me a tour of his latest acquisitions and selling me a Singer 27 bobbin winder. I had to do some fancy electrical work to bring it to a safe state, but it turned out great. The machine was for a client who was delighted to have a machine that is now fully functional.

~ Lisa Selzler




Courtney

Courtney tells of a machine he recently acquired, but unfortunately with bad packing.

This month I have a sad story. We have all heard stories of sewing machines ruined in shipment. I have such a story, I purchased on line a small ¾ size Vickers hand crank sewing machine. It looked to be in rather sad condition but looked like something I could restore to decent condition. As a kid I was fascinated by World War I biplanes and many of the English planes, like the Sopwith Camel and the SPAD XIII, were armed with Vickers machine guns. It's interesting that with the outbreak of WWI, England was not going to be able to import German sewing machines, so Vickers started into studying the possibility of manufacturing sewing machines. They seemed to have been popular in the UK between the two World Wars.

I was excited to get the little Vickers machine but as I opened the box I could tell there might be some problems as the arched top case had some holes in it. As I went further things got worse. On the inside the hand crank had been completely broken off. And even worse as I looked at the machine I could see the the machine’s base plate had a large Y crack in it. Underneath it was obvious that some of the support ribs were cracked. I think the damage had been caused by two major factors. First was the packing of the machine. Even though the machine head had been wrapped in bubble wrap, it was not secured to the base and had become loose and had flopped around during shipment. The other factor was the machine must have been rather violently handled during shipment. I had not paid much and did get my money refunded but would have preferred the machine. I have not looked carefully to see what I might be able to salvage. The four bobbins look very similar to the bobbins in my Jones machine. I will also see if the shuttle will fit, I am not sure if I will be able to salvage much else. Sad to see such a cute little machine mistreated so badly.









In Closing

Looks like fall is around the corner. That is all for this month. Thanks for reading.

OurWorkbench

Trail Ridge Road closed due to ice and snow on September 14th but was back open later in the day.
Trail Ridge Road is the highest continuous paved road in the United States, which is one of Colorado's most popular scenic roads. While it is closed permanently from October to around Memorial day. The earliest the road has opened was May 7, 2002, while the latest was June 26, 1943. The historical opening and closing dates for Trail Ridge Road and Old Fall River Road can be found at https://www.nps.gov/romo/learn/photo...ng_trr_ofr.htm

Then on the the first full day of fall the mountains got measurable snow with rain in Denver. The National Weather Service said Denver International Airport set a daily rainfall record for Sept. 23. The 1.28" of precipitation recorded Tuesday in Denver was the wettest Sept. 23 since records began in 1872.

Enough of Colorado weather, we have a short report this month.

Courtney

Courtney was the only one to report this month and tells of couple of projects that are looking good.

The Following is my September Report:

This month I have been working on a couple of long term projects. A couple of years before COVID my daughter gave me the treadle workings of an old Willcox and Gibbs parlor cabinet. I used the parts to make a small treadle table to take to History Fest to demonstrate to the fourth graders. This treadle has worked out exceptionally well. It is light weight, has all the workings easily visible, and is small. So I have decided to make another. I have all of the support structure completed. For right now I have an old top I made 10 or 12 years ago but since it is made of particle board, it is heavy so I am in the process of making a walnut top from plywood. When I get the new top finished I will stain everything and make it all look pretty. I have included a picture of the table so far with the old top on the side.

My other project this month has been the little Vickers sewing machine that arrived in pieces. The hand crank was broken off and the cloth plate had a Y crack such that a piece in the back was totally broken off. The case also suffered serious damage. There was very little I could salvage from the machine (a shuttle and some bobbins.) A good friend suggested I try some JB Weld since I had nothing to lose. I spent about $10 on some JB Weld and spent some time watching YouTube videos on how to best use JB Weld. I first worked on the hand crank bracket. I bought some 100% acetone finger nail polish remover at Walgreens to clean both sides of the cracked bracket to make sure everything was clean. I then put the JB Weld on both sides of the broken bracket, put some wax paper on a board and clamped one piece to the board. Next I carefully slide the other piece up to the clamped piece so they fit exactly, then clamped the second piece to the board. JB Weld takes a long time the set-up and cure, so I set everything aside so it wouldn’t be disturbed for 24 hours. Since the hand crank bracket turned out pretty well, I next attacked the cloth plate. I cleaned the broken edges and applied JB Weld then clamped a board covered with wax paper to the cloth plate, carefully fitted the loose piece then clamped it to the board and let everything sit for 24 hours. Today I took everything to coffee and my friend and I put it all back together. I was not too concerned about the cloth plate as it is well supported in its base but I was a bit concerned about the hand crank bracket. Everything seems to be working fine so far. I need to oil up the machine and I think that will make things even smoother. I need to try actually sewing something but so far so good. I have included a picture with the Vickers on top of my treadle table (with a small supervisor in the middle of the picture) and a picture from the back showing the JB Welded hand crank bracket and the portion of the cloth plate that was JB Welded. I still need to do a bit of touch up but I don’t think things look too bad. If the JB Weld eventually doesn’t work out I will let you know.

Enjoying the Fall so far,
Courtney







In Closing

That is all for this month. Thanks for reading. See you next month.

OurWorkbench

While I sometimes tell about weather of the front range of Colorado, it looks like this month I will tell you of massive rains and some flooding in western Colorado in October. The rain that was recorded at the Grand Junction totaled 2" which was the most two day total since 1941 and fourth highest in history. Wolf Creek pass had over 5" of rain. There was an evacuation of more than 390 homes in La Plata County due to flooding. Vallecito Creek and Grimes Creek have had "unprecedented" flooding with a high of 7,200 cubic feet per second captured for Vallecito Creek, which is more than double what a significant spring runoff event would produce. Then on October 17th there was magnitude 3.0 earthquake hit Colorado just before 1 p.m. The epicenter of the quake was about 30 miles to the southeast of Denver, just outside of Elbert, near Castle Rock. There were very few reports of shaking.

Now on to the single report for this month.

Lisa
Lisa has been quite busy in spite of being sick. She also sent a picture of the full quilt that parts of which were seen on the September 2025 Colorado Get-Together post.

Here is my update:
Update:

First, Here are pictures as requested of the front and back of the quilt I had used as a backdrop for the pictures on my last update. It was the Sweet Tooth mystery quilt from the Modern Quilt Studio.





Been a busy month for me personally and professionally. I visited Italy during my first trip to Europe. Such a lovely country and culture! Unfortunately, I got sick there, probably influenza, and spent most of my vacation in bed, self-quarantine. Came home and developed all the upper-respiratory -itises. Drugs and rest and I hope to be fully recovered soon. Here is a picture from right outside my room in Castel Gandolfo. This old girls show up in the most unlikely of places.



I have been building up my little business of service and repair of vintage and antique sewing machines. Because I can’t just leave it alone, I am expanding my repertoire to include modern machine maintenance by taking lessons and apprenticeship through the Sewing Doc Academy. Without being an “authorized service technician” for particular dealers, I will be limited in getting parts or doing repairs on modern machines, but general maintenance is still greatly needed.

This week, I picked up a Featherweight from a client who is donating it to the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum. I will be servicing it in preparation for the machine to be included in their Spring Fabric & Friends fundraising Auction. I briefly looked at it when picking it up and saw that it would be a suitable candidate for the auction. Today, I pulled it out of the case and realized it is a full-fledged Blackside, complete with black faceplace, stitch regulator plate, and presser bar lever! It will be a beautiful machine once it gets cleaned up! More information and pictures in upcoming months.

As I mentioned last month, I was the speaker at the CQC (Colorado Quilting Council) general meeting on Saturday. After a late start, I spoke on “Your Sewing Machine: How it works and what you can do to keep it running great.” The general meeting that preceded the speaker went an hour over, the PowerPoint slide formatting was corrupted in translation from my provided thumb drive, and moments prior to the introduction, they announced that a beloved long-time member had passed away that morning. Wow. An auspicious opening, but I still think some valuable information was presented.

Sunday I lead an all-day Featherweight workshop that helped 11 women learn more about their machines and increase their confidence in maintaining them on their own.
Coming up on Nov. 9, I will be doing a Sunday at the Museum lecture at the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum entitled “Treadles, Hand Cranks & Motors--Oh My!”, following the evolution of the critical sewing machine components from 1900 to today.

Last but not least, I am starting a series of one-one-one, 1-hour workshops called First Friday Featherweight Fun where clients sign up for a session when they sit next to me as I do a general maintenance (cleaning, lubricating, adjustments, review for issues) on their machine and teach them how to do it themselves. This is geared for those machine owners who are too intimidated to attend a group session and may need assistance identifying the working end of a screwdriver.

I think I am doing this retirement thing wrong.

~ Lisa Selzler

In Closing

That is all we have for this month. Thank you for reading. We will post again next month.

OurWorkbench

December 2025 Colorado Get-Together

Denver has had some weird weather in the last month. Denver had the highest all time high for November on the 2nd as it hit 83°F. Then Denver finally got its first measurable snow on November 29th with only 0.2 inches, which put it as the second latest measurable first snow. It needs 0.10 inch to be measurable. The snowfall also ended a long streak of 225 snowless days, which tied with 1888, for the third-longest since record-keeping began. December 3rd Denver finally got over 2 inches, which made it 291 days since having over 2 inches. DIA (official Denver station) got 3.5 inches but there were parts of Denver that reported 6.5 inches.

Enough weather report. Short report this month, with only Janey reporting.

Janey
Janey tells of an experiment with her pinker.

I probably should have done some other tests, but I wondered how the Singer pinker did with (I think cotton) twill woven fabric. I had pinked some nylon windbreaker fabric and really liked the result as there was no fraying. I thought I knew where the nylon was, but couldn't find it. So I can't show the nylon pinked edges. I had some twill fabric that I cut some six inch squares out of. I then marked a half inch line in from the edges to guide the pinker. I also cut one piece with an Olfa rotary cutter. I washed in a mesh bag, just to be on the safe side. I also dried in the dryer. I should have marked the grain line as I think I labeled them with a felt tip pin. I think I wrote Olfa on a turned piece from a different grain line. While all pieces frayed some. I noticed that one edge frayed a little less. I think that the lengthwise straight of grain edges are the ones that frayed less.










In Closing
That is all we have for this month. Hopefully we will have more to share next month. Wishing all happy holidays and a great new year.

Farmhousesewer

Hi Janey,
Thanks for the post. I have a fancination with pinkers and cutters. I have them in all shapes and sizes, by many different companies and different, what I call heftiness!. I have one that can pink through leather ( not that it needs pinking) like butter.
My straight cutters are for wool for rughooking. All cut from pressure, not sharpness of a blade.

From my experience, the lengthwise grain is what most people are concerned with and it frays less when pinked. Think of a pair of pants. The leg seams are parallel to the length of grain. The waist and hem raw edges are probably turned under or bound. Same with arms and bodice are cut on the length of grain, so the same concept.

Not to turn off topic, but Merry Christmas!
Maria

OurWorkbench

Thank you, Maria, for explaining that so well. That makes so much sense.

Merry Christmas to you, too.

OurWorkbench

While much of the country was having lots of snow and frigid temperatures in mid December, Denver tied the daily record high from 1921 on the 15th with a high of 68°F. Then Denver tied another record high from 1933 of 67°F on the 21st. Then on the 22nd Denver broke the record for the 22nd which was 70°F from 1955 with a high of 76°F. There was only one other December day with a higher temperature of 79°F degrees on Dec. 5, 1939. Then again on the 24th Denver broke another record high from 1955 with 71°F. Another record high was had on the 25th, breaking the previous record high of 69°F from 2005 with high temperature of 71°F. Then on the 26th it broke the previous record from 1980 with 16 December days with high temperatures over 60°F. Then Denver had 2 more days of over 60°F making December 2025 the 2nd warmest December in history. Then January started out with 5 days of over 60°F and on the 6th the high was 57°F.
Now that the Denver weather report is done, lets get on with the purpose of this post. With the holidays falling as they did, this was delayed. Now we have the following reports.

James
James tells of the very nice machine with lots of goodies that he inherited from his mom and of machine he was not able to inherit.

This is my Mom’s Singer 301 and accessories. Note the extra templates and cams for the buttonholer and automatic zigzagger as most people just used the ones that came with the buttonholer and zigzagger. Also shown are some parts used in leather working.

... My dad was a foreman at an upholstery factory when he got drafted for Korea so the (hog ring) pliers may be from that time in his life. He rebuilt a MGA sports car in the 1970s and reupholstered it as well putting on Naugahyde seating for our chairs and sofa. He used his black Pfaff sewing machine in a portable case for this type of work. It was given away before I started collecting sewing machines.









to be continued...

OurWorkbench

Courtney
Courtney shared some of what he has been up to with some projects with his machines.

My sewing machine projects this month have been rather diverse. A couple of months ago I was given an early Bernina 830 (c1972.) It needed a bit of tuning and quite a bit of cleaning, but I was able to finish it all up. The light bulb switch was bad, and I also had to replace it. It is now sewing well, and I have a light to see the stitching! The original flat plate was not included so I made one from an old sheet of plastic. To make the plate portable, I put on some feet made from some old prescription bottles. It is quite sturdy. Finally, although it did come with the original Bernina foot control and cords, I saw online a modern electronic foot control with Bernina cables. So, I spent my twenty or so dollars and tried one out. It seemed to work fine and did work well on other non-electronic Berninas that I have.

Some months ago, I found online a 3D printable hand crank. I experimented using it with a Singer model 24. The problem with the 24 was that it can only take the belt from the bottom. I made a wooden apparatus for holding the crank off the side of the table. While looking at this apparatus I thought I would try it with my treadle Featherweight. It did seem to work Ok this the treadle Featherweight. I am going to do a bit more experimenting but even if left just the way it is it is quite usable.

I have collected a number of early glass tension Willcox and Gibbs machines. I used the 3D hand crank I mentioned above to turn them into hand crank machines. They seem to sew quite well when all adjusted, so I am going to do a workshop in time travel at Cosine (a science fiction convention) in late January. We are going to sew US Sanitary Commission housewives (sewing kits) on Civil War machines. Not all the machines are Civil War, but half are (1859, 1863, 1871, 1886.) The other half of the machines are the same models just a bit newer. The picture is of the oldest machine first and a housewife is on the plate. Hope they hold together until we get done!
Courtney










In Closing
That is all for this month. Thank you, James & Courtney for your contributions and to our readers. See you next month.

OurWorkbench

Like a great deal of the country, Denver got hit with frigid temperatures. However, not a whole lot of snow. Starting Thursday the 22nd at 5pm. Denver had an 89-hour sub-freezing temperature streak in Denver. According to a news report for Monday the 26th at 12:15am temperature was -6°F (-21°C) and then about 2:00pm Denver had a high of 45°F (7°C), quite the swing in temperature. On Groundhog Day, Denver has tied for second place with the most 60° days in winter (December through February), with a few more in the immediate forecast.

Let's get started with our reports for this month.

Dianne

Dianne tells of some quilts that she has been working on with a twist of original instructions.

Some years ago an interesting quilt piecing technique showed up called Hidden Wells. This involves making several identical strip sets, then cutting them into squares. These squares are placed right sides together with one turned 90 degrees. After stitching around the outside edges, they are cut diagonally in both directions. This creates 4 half square triangles from each pair of squares. They have bias edges, so it is recommended to starch or use something to help stabilize your fabric before starting this project.

It takes four squares, cut into two sets of four hsts to make the Hidden Wells quilt pattern, using two pieces from each pair of squares. Set correctly, this creates two different blocks, and a very cool pattern develops from alternating them. Other people make just one or two blocks from short leftover strips, for a scrappy effect. I made a quilt that way once, keeping a few colors constant. Other quilt patterns have shown up using this technique.

What I’ve been doing now is a bit different, although undoubtedly other people have done this. Instead of using strips, it appeared that fabrics which were sort of striped might be used this way, and no sewing of strip sets would be necessary. They might be called fancy stripes. Below are three examples, with a piece of the original fabric and how it turned out. The brown had a small repeat, so was cut into squares utilizing two repeats. This has been an interesting experiment, and several other fabrics in my stash are awaiting this fate.









...to be continued

OurWorkbench

and a couple more of Dianne's fancy stripes






Courtney

Courtney shares about his presentation and some additional hand crank info.

Last month I mentioned that I was going to be working with some of my older Willcox and Gibbs machines at a Science Fiction Convention in Colorado Springs. I took three glass tension W&G hand cranks (1859,1863,1871) and a couple of English automatic hand cranks (both early 1880’s). The automatic machines are a bit less fussy than the glass tension machines. I billed the presentation and working with real time machines. I had about 20 participants from about age 10 to 70 and we made Civil War Housewives (sewing kits) using the U.S. Sanitary Commission instructions. Overall things went pretty well. The biggest problem was that we had to share the machines and we ran overtime. Fortunately, we were able to move to a large open area and finish up. I think most everyone had a good time and I had a couple of rave comments from participant the next day.

I have been having a good time playing around with printing a 3D hand crank I found on-line about 6 months ago. I have designed a base for all of my glass tension W&G machines to make them usable for situations like the above. I have talked about these modifications in earlier reports. I have also talked about the simple modification to a Singer Featherweight to make it usable in a treadle base. I finally decided to make a usable hand crank for the Featherweight. I started with a ¾ plywood base about 8x14 inches and then attached a pillar to hold the hand crank wheel at the right front corner.





...to be continued