A Different Kind of Hand Sewing

One of my priority projects for this weekend was to work on hand-piecing the Sunflower block for Barbara Brackman's Grandmother's Choice BOW.  I picked my fabrics and had my templates ready for some fussy cutting.  But as I played with the fabrics I realized my choices just weren't working.  No problem - I moved on to piecing two other Grandmother's Choice blocks.

The two blocks I needed to make had already been cut for machine piecing, but in the spirit of hand sewing, I got out my trusty Singer Model 99 hand crank.  I've bragged about this machine before - it's hard to beat a hand crank sewing machine for piecing accuracy.

Easy peasy - the New Jersey block was done - and had nice accurate points.

Next up:  Aunt Eliza's Star.  Very happy with the result here!

OK, it's taken me way too long to finish this entry.  I'm watching the Saints on Sunday Night Football (it's kind of a special game tonight!) and have every intention of working on the binding on this quilt.  Since I've had a day of hand sewing, I'll link up to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching to share some hand stitching inspiration.  

Go Saints!

Addendum:  Saints win and I finished binding the quilt - I'm a happy camper!

Hand Cranking Through the Strings

Since today's weather was not conducive to outdoor activities (it was raining to hard to even jump in the car and go antiquing!), I decided to pull out one of my long-term quilt projects.  I keep this project at the camp and work on it when there's inclement weather or I need a project to keep my hands busy while watching a movie or sporting event.

Here is my secret for sewing while watching TV - a nice, quiet, hand-cranked sewing machine!  This model happens to be a Singer Model 99.  It uses "modern" round bobbins, takes regular thread (I'm using Masterpiece 100% cotton thread here, but cotton-covered poly thread works fine, too), and sews a beautiful straight stitch.  I have the machine set on the coffee table in the great room at our camp.  It's not a great ergonomic set-up, but it works well when I want to sew and still watch TV with my DH.

The hand crank mechanism attaches to the sewing machine flywheel.  It has a short finger that fits between the spokes of the wheel and drives the wheel as the crank is turned.  You can see the finger at about 3 o'clock in this picture.  It's not a machine for pedal-to-the-metal speed sewing, but it is good for all-round accurate piecing.  And for string piecing!

My rainy day project is based on Bonnie Hunter's Spiderweb quilt.  I have accumulated a huge stash of purple and gold scraps (OK, I have scraps and yardage!) thanks to a couple of Louisiana State University scrap quilts I made.  My goal is to put a dent in the scraps by making spiderweb string blocks.  As you can see, I'm using Bonnie's technique of piecing on old phone book pages.  You'll also notice I traded out the standard Singer sewing foot for a quarter inch piecing foot.  Quarter inch seams are not entirely necessary for string quilts, but I wanted to show that it's possible to find quarter inch feet that will fit these vintage machines.

Since the iron is in the other room and I'm lazy, I just finger-press the strings as I go.  

String block with all the floppy pieces, read for pressing.

Over to the cutting board for trimming.

One of four finished units for the Spiderweb block.

I managed to crank out 8 blocks during the LSU-Stony Brook baseball game.

And here's a batch of 16 blocks to show a complete spiderweb.