Done enough...

One of my favorite phrases. :-D  The Davis head and cabinet and irons are cleaned up enough to use:

It looks good from a distance, but close-up it's pretty rough.  The cabinet was in worse condition than I realized, once I got all of the dirt off of it, but it is ok with a good cleaning/Restore-a-Finish/Howards Feed & Wax (I have all the drawer pulls, the other two are still soaking in cleaner).  Once reassembling everything it seems to work, though I don't have a needle in it at the moment so I don't know it will sew a stitch - but it should, as it appears everything is there.

My GF gave me her older sewing machine, too - a Singer 6106.  It's actually newer than my other machines (~1980-81), but it sews a nice stitch and is quiet-running.  It actually fulfills many of the requirements for a machine that I had been shopping for - the only thing it doesn't 'have' is being lightweight, but it's not quite as heavy as my older machines so I give it a half-point for that. :-D

I was going to sew a quickie cover for it today, but today didn't go as I had planned so no sewing. :-(  Maybe this week....


I also did some spinning on the Penguin (the merino/cashmere blend).  I had had to re-do the spindle because I broke it off a month ago.  Luckily it was easy to just shorten it, and I do like it better shorter.  Hopefully I will get more spinning in this week as well.

I need to get motivated to do more than watch TV during the week - I have no problem with sitting without having my hands busy, and often don't think of doing something while watching TV.  Maybe I need caffeine later in the day....

As usual...

I  didn't do much this week.  I did a little bit of work on the Davis head today but wanted to watch my football team today so am back upstairs.  I did pull the Davis base out, and wow is that going to be a lot of work.

The irons look a bit rusty, and the cabinet needs a lot of reconditioning (I do have the fourth drawer).  But, like the head, everything seems to work ok.  I'm planning to work on the irons/cabinet next weekend, if the weather holds.

I'm going to get back to spinning the yak blend I have on the Polonaise, because I really want to get working on this:

 BL lamb/mohair yearling

A wonderfully-soft almost-black fiber that wants to spin quite fine which will be awesome to spin on the Pol.  I picked this up at the annual spin-in yesterday from the same vendor that I bought the luscious (and yet unspun) black-ish mohair locks from last year. 

I added a little bit of fiber to my stash at the spin-in, but not nearly as much as in years past as I have an incredible stash right now and hubby said something about 'hoarding', which took some of the fun out of the day.  :-( 

But I also picked up this nicely-soft gray raw alpaca from a new supplier:

It's pretty clean and I anticipate an easy spin.

This is a really nice merino that reminds me of the red colonial wool that I still have a ton of:

merino

(And I only bought 4 ounces, so I may get this bump finished!)
 This:

 "wool" and mohair blend

and some Cormo

to try.  I'm told it's really nice to spin and makes a nice soft yarn, so I bought a little to play with.

While I was at Joann's last week looking for a particular book (which I didn't find *anywhere* in town), I picked up this book:

Norwegian Handknits

This is issued by the Vesterheim Museum.  Though most of the projects are beyond my knitting capabilities, the vintage photos are wonderful and there are a couple of things I should be able to make.

I need to get back to sewing my apron, but right now cleaning the head is taking up all of my working room.  I think I'm just about done with the cleaning though, depending on how thorough I want to be (I'm not sure I want to disassemble the bobbin winder or tension assembly), so hopefully I'll be able to get back to sewing pretty soon!

Wow - guess it's been awhile....

I haven't had much to show though.  I sewed the second tote bag kit, which was interesting because it needed basic quilting, plus the instructions didn't have pockets.  I added pockets to make it my sewing tote, including one for my quilting ruler and a strap to hold my ironing mat.  The pockets are a big reason why it took so long - had to figure out what I wanted, how I wanted it, and where.  I like how it turned out; I left the handles long on purpose because tote straps are always too short IMO.  Here it is with the machine I sewed it on:

(Note to self: top-stitching and a hand-cranked machine isn't necessarily a good idea for me!)

And this is my new project:

It's a Davis VF2.  These are different than my usual vintage machines, in that they have a built-in walking foot.  I've actually had it for several years, but had been storing it for someone to pick up.  They decided they didn't want it after all so gave it to me.  It's in pretty rough shape, so the cleaning is going to take awhile.

I've done a tiny bit of spinning this week, on the Penguin, but will probably pick it up more this week. :-)