What a great find!

Last Sunday my husband Gil and I went on a little date. We were on our way to a Chinese buffet and we saw an estate sale. Of course we had to pull over. Gil made a great find and found a children's sewing machine from the 50's. It is called a Little Betty Sew-O-Matic made by Straco.






My Friend Kelly who owns Glitz Beadz in Star www.glitzbeadz.com invited me to the Boise Bead Society last week. We learned how to make a herringbone spiral technique. It is pretty easy once you get the hang of it. It was a nice group of women . I plan to go back next month.

This last week we attended the Boise Basin Quilt Guild. Saw some great quilting friend and was so inspired by the show and tell. The speaker was Joyce Cambron. She just published abook, here is her website http://www.seamslikefunquilts.com/ Check it out she has some cool quilts and techniques.

1918 White Treadle Sewing Machine

Well I have been working on my 1918 White Treadle Sewing machine. Gil and I took it out of the cabinet and starting oiling and cleaning. At first it clinked when the needle went up and down but after a good oiling it sounds pretty good. It has a bit of grime as you can imagine for being almost 100 years old. I did a lot of research on the Internet and found some great websites on treadles and cleaning them. Here is a link in case you have one that you would to clean and restore.

http://www.treadleon.net/

I also was able to get a copy of the manual without paying $10.00. I called White sewing machine and they told me the year my machine was built from the serial number. They also told me that all cabinets were made in Cleavland Ohio. It is my understanding that my cabinet is rare, so I now will research who made it and how many were made. I am also including a picture of the attachments. Going to take me a while to figure all these out. I will keep you posted.

I learned to make Beaded Beads. I just love them and can't wait to make a whole bunch. I will post pictures soon

A New Beginning

Why do we wait till January 1st for new beginnings. I recently read a blog and the person asked why not make the changes in August. Well let's pretend this is August.

Since it has been ages since I posted lets just start with goals this year and then I will get to posting all the things I have made.

I have been following a few art quilt bloggers and recently posted was the Sketchbook Challenge. sketchbookchallenge.blogspot.com

I think this kind of challenge will enhance my art skills and develop my artistic goals. I invite you to join me on this adventure.

The challenge is posted every month and you are to sketch the theme of the month. I am going to follow this challenge but I am going to take it a little further. I am going to draw in my sketchbook but I am also going to quilt my sketch with non conventional material.

The first month theme is "Highly Prized".....

I will post as I go along and reflect on the process.

I have been using my featherweight recently and now I want to get to my treadle. I got my treadle in Canada a few years back and it has been a great lamp table. So I am going to try to find the manual and tune it and play with it.

So here is to new Beginnings and to Quilting, Beading, Knitting and Blogging.......