Simply Stitchy

    Hi all, I haven't done much knitting for years. I think my last completed project was a floppy Brim hat back in 2010. It was a bit of a flop if I remember correctly... Nice shade of lavender though! Anyway, I joined the local Fibre Arts group back in April which has rekindled my interest in both knitting and crochet.  One thing that has surprised me is how much you can forget about both skills. So much of this year has been taken up relearning how to do both. It would appear that they are perishable skills. In my eagerness to knit and crochet as much as possible, I've been surfing the internet for patterns. Nice easy patterns to ease me gently back into the world of all things yarn related.  One of the first things I made was a Snoopy head. It was supposed to be a whole Snoopy... but I used the wrong size crochet hook. Say 'hi' to Franken-snoop!      I thought he came out kinda cute so I entered him in the local fair. He didn't win anything but he...

  It’s that time of year when we can shake off our winter blues and look forward to a summer full of sunshine and warm weather. Particularly the warmth! It may be April, but my part of the world is still desperately trying to shake off winter’s grip. It’s freezing right now! As I don’t want to spend much time outside in the cold, I decided to spring clean my sewing area. Having spent the winter months working on three different quilt tops … actually, I think it might have been four… the area is looking a little bit lived in.   Not only that, but the local thrift store is closing down. Never one to turn down a bargain, I have spent the last few weeks topping up on sewing supplies. A couple of hem markers, a little bit of fabric, some different fabric, and just to be safe, more fabric. There are sewing machines and piles of fabric everywhere. I’m feeling in need of some re-organization! I already have some filing cabinets but, they are all full to bursting. ...

 Hi all I've always been a fan of charity shops. Even before they became a fashionable way to reuse or  repurpose other people's unwanted clutter.  To me, they have always been a gateway for feeding my addiction to vintage and antique sewing machines.  Like this one.  Isn't she a beauty? According to the markings, She is a New Home machine made in West Germany so I'm guessing she's a post war... maybe 1950s... electric sewing machine.    She has a bolt-on motor and the shortest electric cable I have ever seen on a sewing machine! Look at it! It's tiny! That's never going to reach any of my electrical outlets. I'm thinking that this vintage sewing machine was made to be in a cabinet... or a previous owner cut the cable for some reason.  Maybe their outlets were mounted on a desk and they didn't want long cables cluttering the workspace?  Who knows? One thing I do know, is this sewing machine is going to give me a little bit of a headache!...

 Hi all I've been running this Simply Stitchy blog on Blogger for quite a while now. Along with its sister site, Simply Thimbles, I've been using this platform since 2010, or thereabouts. That's 14 years! Simply Thimbles Image property of Olwen White Although I have been happily tapping away and posting the odd blog post here and there, and trust me, most of them are definitely on the odd side , the Blogger platform isn't exactly... idiot proof.  Not for this idiot anyway.  I'm the first to admit my passion lies with vintage sewing machines not computer coding technologies. Singer 128 Vibrating Shuttle Image Property of Olwen White   You can even give me a top of the range modern sewing machine with bells, whistles, and flashy lights... like the Janome Continental M17 (please Janome, if you're reading... give me one of those... or the M7... I'd be happy with the M7... pretty please?) and I'm in my element.  Make me figure out the intricacies of compos...

Hi all I've been quilting for a while now but last year, 2022, was the first time I attended a quilt show. Well, it turned out to be three quilt shows. All in the same month pretty much. The first was a relatively new outdoor quilt show in a town about two hours away from me. I wasn't sure what to expect but the talent on show, even in the basic quilts, was simply amazing.  I even managed to find a new friend for my sewing area. A Singer 99 from 1926. In need of a little TLC, she has become a welcome addition to my vintage sewing machine collection.     I thought this quilt was adorable. The little cat reminded me so much of my own two little monsters.    As a fan of the Sunbonnet Sue block, this quilt made me smile too! The next was in the closest metropolis to me. It was a lot bigger and was held in a convention center. I didn't think it was possible to get so many quilts all in one area. I found this humerus is a fitting title for the cat with a bone! I was...

 Hi all I don't come across items made from bakelite very often. Apart from two bakelite sewing machine pedals, the only other bakelite item I own is a bakelite thimble .  At one time, bakelite was everywhere. From door knobs to telephones. As the world's first foray into the world of plastic, it found it's way into all aspects of life. I think it peaked in the late 1950s and then slowly fell out of favour through the 60s and into the 70s as the new and improved plastics came into play. Anyway, I have two sewing machines that came with a bakelite foot pedal. One is the Singer 301 and the other is the latest addition to my sewing machine collection. The Singer 66.  Image by Olwen White This type of pedal can be found on sewing machines from around the 1930s through to the 1950s. My 301 dates to around 1954 and my 66 is from 1949. So they fall neatly into that date range. Although it's most often associated with Singer, some other brands also used this type of pedal. Necc...