Category Archives: collecting

November 18, 2014 · 7:15 AM

Meet the rest of my sewing machines

A sequel to my first post about some of my mechanical herd…

I’m finally reunited with the two “lost” sewing machines trapped for too long in storage.

sewingmachines-atlas

I’m a sucker for a pink Atlas – my other  one has been a favorite over the years, and this one still hasn’t gone for a test drive since the cord is cut.  I found it on garbage day (or maybe the night before) on my old street.  I can’t remember if I was late for work and trotting down the long hill to the bus, but found this and had to lug it back up and start all over again and ended up being really late, or I found it at the end of dusk slogging up the hill after a long day at work and it made my day.  Either way, I schlepped this beast up a fairly substantial hill and haven’t gotten around to rewiring it for more than a decade.

And my fuzzy memory about rescuing it from its dump fate is because I found and lugged home lots of great sh*t on that street – including an old metal headboard from one of those old long narrow beds that prompted the comment by a passerby, “Do you always carry your bed with you?”  And I believed I said yes, I’m very tired.  But I don’t know what happened to that – I think it was a casualty in the move from that place…

sewingmachines-singer

And this Singer hasn’t had much love – I’m pretty sure it’s a 66, and maybe I already had that 99 and got this thinking it was the same and I could use it for parts?  All I know was it was an early thrift find and I don’t remember if it works now, and maybe I’ll part with it eventually.

So I am done buying old sewing machines… unless I find one that has stitch functions I don’t have, is non-electrically operated (like a treadle in a lovely cabinet), or something that is uniquely and fantastically awesome – and all must be for a great price and reasonably sound condition.  So, I’m really not in the market for them anymore unless I find something truly special.  And that’s a problem.  I wasn’t looking for a zig-zag machine a few weeks ago because I had been looking for the last 15 years or so and gave up – then, presto!

This lovely beast followed me home.

sewingmachine-new home 532

My current localish thrift is pretty decent – not a lot of vintage stuff, but good prices – I got this for $12.99.

Not sure what the inked-on “W” marks or means – hopefully wonderful or wondrous or woo hoo or wildly fantastic or wicked good or woot or wow, and not wonky or wah or wacky or whoops or whoop-de-doo…

sewingmachines-new home 532 detail

I’m also not sure if and how well it works yet, but the needle goes up and down which is the most crucial part.  So as long as I can get this up and running, and if I ever get around putting a hand crank on one of my others, then I’m really not in the market for another, right?  (Really, I’m not trying to jinx myself for the better, I don’t want more heavy old things).

I’ve never owned a new, or less than 40-years-old, sewing machine but I’ve been wanting a serger for some time.  I never felt I had a right (or the money) to buy one since I wanted it for making napkins and small bags and such, and those things can be made with any machine, just with folding and ironing added to the mix.  But I wanted to take out folding and ironing, and in some cases, preserve as many millimeters of the fabric as I could, so I asked for and received this for my last “big” birthday – thank you mom & dad!

janome serger

I took it out for a test run a bit ago, and it’s going to be fun and quite useful, but like the others, it’s waiting patiently and safely until I get its room in shape, and more importantly, I find the damn bolts and wing nuts for the tables to put it on.

(And my brain is on an endless loop saying: “janome-baloney, janome-baloney, janomey-baloney…”)

So it’s even more fitting that my last find was a New Home/Janome to go with my new serger – hopefully it will teach its younger sibling lessons in durability and perseverance.

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October 1, 2014 · 6:09 AM

In praise of N…

I’m taking most of the credit for our house fixing-upping, and since I only work work part-time at the moment, I do put in several more hours/days a week on it, but N isn’t just sitting around on his ass either (unless I am too and we’re taking a much needed break).

His work is often stealthy and surprising – like whipping up a work bench while I’m painting a room (and possibly cursing under my breath that he isn’t helping, but then I find out he he was doing something very useful and necessary).  Or taking care of some little annoying paint/patch/trim detail in the morning when he’s up at an ungodly hour and I’m still snoozing.

workbench

He’ll take out toilets and do some minor electrical tinkering – things I either really don’t want to do, or don’t feel comfortable doing.

And take care of all of the floor and ceiling trim cutting – something I’m quite capable of doing, but waste more and bitch about a lot more.

And he’s a machine when it comes to hacking out massive patches of invasive species – at the last house it was bamboo, this one is Japanese Knotweed (of which we still haven’t quite gained the upper hand).

And please, anyone who is reading – never plant bamboo and Japanese Knotweed!!!!!

And the part I find most crucial on a daily basis is that he’s the cook (again, I am capable of doing so, but I could exist most nights on scrambled eggs and some greens, or pasta-all-the-time) so he keeps it interesting and delicious (I do supply the occasional enormous pot of chili or spontaneous vegetarian concoction).

sagefritters

(sage fritters with an anchovy surprise inside)

But the most kudos go to his willingness and ability to haul my shit.  When we first got together, I was bemoaning the fact that I lived in such a small apartment crowded with too many things, and instead of telling me I should purge, he said I just needed a bigger place… though it was possibly one of the most destructively enabling statements anyone has ever tossed at me, I loved it and it was endearing and actually inspired me to get things in better order to some degree, but after three hurried moves in the last few years, things have gotten out of control again.

Our albatross has been a storage locker 5 1/2 hours away that we thought we’d only have for a few months… It turned out to be two years and a few months.

storage empty

But now it is finally empty and no longer ours!

stored sewing machines

And I found a couple more sewing machines that I thought I had…

NtheHulk

And N was a total beast hauling it all out of the locker, into the truck, out of the truck, and into the house.

Don’t be fooled by the ugly 1980s cover on that chair – it has to weigh close to 200 pounds, is nearly large enough for two, and is from c. 1940 when furniture was made to last out of iron and oak.  I’ll be sewing a new cover for it eventually.

truck full

And it is a little shocking to see how much stuff* we lived perfectly fine without for two and some years…

And yes, that’s a box of rocks on the bottom…

I promise those won’t be around when and if there’s another move.

(Or else I’ll hide them better).

*In my/our defense, we had two separate households for a few years and needed double the stuff.

[edited to correct some typos]

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June 18, 2014 · 6:38 AM

Old blue quilt

oldbluequilt-full

Many years ago, I found this old narrow reversible quilt at my old favorite thrift store.  I loved that it was made from scraps, improvisational, hand and machine-sewn, and the fact that it was just plain old, and I like old sh*t.

I sewed a sleeve on the opposite of what I considered the more public side and hung it in my bedroom to ward off the cold seeping through the walls in my old apartment – I loved that place too because it was old – but damn, it was also cold.

oldbluequilt-ties

It’s tufted with knots of white, blue, and reddish-pink (perhaps formerly red?) wool yarn.  The interior might be filled with wool as well as it’s just a mass of somewhat disgusting clumpy lumps now, but I’d need to perform a little surgery to find out.

(And I don’t think I really want to see what’s in it in case it’s nasty).

oldbluequilt-pinwheel

The reverse has a pinwheel and some nice fabrics not seen on the front.  This pinwheel got into my deep brain and caused me to make many half-demented pinwheels last summer, or maybe the summer before…  I think I probably have enough to make something from them… I should find them.

oldbluequilt-squiggle

I like this squiggly block.

The back has a few stained blocks, but were stained in their former life perhaps as clothing, as the stains were sewn over.

A few faint splotches look suspiciously like blood, or a really robust coffee mixed with a hearty and delicious red wine.

(That is also part of the reason I chose the other side to display).

oldbluequilt-plaid

And there are some lovely hand stitches too.

I also love that delicate blue pattern on the left side.

I can’t date it – there are definitely some old fabrics in it, perhaps from the 1910s, and the red, white, and blue color scheme could place it in WWII times, but some of the other fabrics have a 1950s and ’60s vibe?  Though the shape is also older – long and narrow – somewhat too big for a crib and too small for a twin bed.  It would probably best fit one of those narrow cot-like beds (don’t they have a name???).

But it seems that it could have been made from old clothes from a number of members of a family perhaps for a notable baby or a soldier – as a memento, or a comfort for someone leaving home.

But things are rarely as they seem, right?

When I was trying to pare down my things after I moved to N’s house, I gave it to him to give to one of his family members who was having babies at the time – I thought it would be nice for a wall in a kid’s room.  But he wanted to keep it, though we didn’t get around to hanging it up then.

Or in that apartment of late of which I’d rather not speak or remember.

And we still haven’t put it up in the new house (or anything else yet until the painting is done…

rather, all of the repairs that need to be done to the walls before I can even begin to paint them).

But I rescued it from storage a few months ago, and I’m  really glad I still have it.

And I love hate love hate love hate love that he enables me in the keeping of old sh*t.

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April 9, 2014 · 11:34 AM

Sticky situation…

So the move was hell – torrential rains, flash flooding, heavy book collections, sewing machine collections, general collections of sh*t.

house-move

(sadly, this is only about half of my stash.)

A hell that also spread to others who were thankfully helping us.  Others will find it a source of amusement if you have tubs labeled “houndstooths” and “herringbones” and “unravelers.”  They will accuse you of having chintz, but you will be glad you know people who know what chintz is and are willing to help you haul the aforementioned heavy, excessive collections in the rain.

The “new” house isn’t very old – a baby boomer in person years, and  isn’t very attractive (yes, the vinyl siding followed us and we can’t afford to replace it) but it is modest and cozy and all ours (along with its problems – we woke to a dead boiler this morning).

It is also filthy.

This is what happens when you don’t have an exhaust hood over your stove:

house-dirtyceiling

I have to go in for a second or third scrub before I can even think of painting.

The house also had kids in it, and every room has evidence of them – stickers stuck to walls ceilings floors, glitter everywhere, scribbles on walls ceilings floors, little toy parts in cracks and crevices, and dubious and disgusting sticky places.

Speaking of stick, many people like this decorative crap for a child’s room:

house-stickers

But each little cheery leaf and branch and bird leaves sticky goo.

And your kid is no artistic genius,

house-scribbles

so why didn’t you clean that sh*t off when you wanted to sell your house?

N triumphantly killed the rotting jungle gym in the yard:

house-junglegym

and I’m totally thrilled we’re surrounded by hills again and that we have a window over the kitchen sink once more, not to mention plenty of gardening space.

house-holes

I also love the little bits of residential archaeology that come with sprucing up a new place – the kitchen was at least two shades of green in the past – maybe it needs to be again…

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February 27, 2014 · 7:52 AM

I just wanted to read a magazine…

I happily made it to the library just in time before the last snowstorm to stock up on readable, watchable, and listenable materials.  Our small suburban branch of a large county library system is fairly mediocre, so I don’t expect to find much when I go, but this time I discovered that they carry Interweave Knits magazine, so I checked out the whole lot.

I settled in to read a few, only to immediately turn to a defiled page.

magazines 026 - Copy

Though I consider myself a feminist, I am not without humor, and I quite like occasional trashy bawdy bits.  But this?  I sort of feel like a knitting magazine is the equivalent of a women’s college – I will be safe, protected from the predatory male, accepted and uplifted by my peers, and free to not care how I present myself.*  So I felt a bit shocked to see it.  But then I realized it just really doesn’t make sense – why would she say “Pop ’em out?”  Is she saying that to someone else in the room?  Is she speaking to another person about his pop-out-ables, or another lady about her’s?  Or should it have said, “Would you like me to pop them out?”

It is unclear.

And the writing is a bit shaky, which could suggest that the author is a man with a G.I.’s racy sense humor from the Greatest Generation (as there are many older folks around here).**

Does it seem a little less creepy that it’s probably from an old dude, or more?

I pondered that while I flipped some more pages, until I was stopped again.

magazines 029 - Copy

This has no ambiguity.

Anyway, it sets my blood to boil when people deface library materials…

So wanting to clear my mind, I chose some different reading material that took me back in time to the days when the author of the graffiti may have been a wee thing.

I had some bad news lately – nothing involving death, illness, or further financial ruin, but soul-crushing in its own way, so I soothed it with a very minor ebay shopping spree of a couple of lots of vintage knitting magazines (that I got for a song).  Included with them were more issues of Minerva which I added to my growing collection.

But what do we have here?

magazines 008 - Copy

A very demonic baby shouting commands…

I agree with the sentiment – I find no reason to merely sit, you should at least be doing something – be it reading or knitting or whittling.  But the ugly little thing kept alternating between yelling at me and feigning sympathy with my potential knitting frustrations page after page.

magazines 012 - Copy

But I also don’t quite understand it either – the baby is criticizing the magazine in which it is printed/housed – essentially biting the feeding hand.  Perhaps this is the beginning of the current obnoxious parenting trend of believing a young child should have say over a parent…

magazines 017 - Copy

Then my feminist hackles began to rise once more…

magazines 010 - Copy

I know this is minor, and over 50 years ago and thus considered “acceptable” at the time, but why must a wedding band be on the sketch of the hand demonstrating how to knit?

magazines 021 - Copy

That’s what I say to the whole thing.

No more magazines for me – I’ll just go back to knitting.

*I know this is an inaccurate (and probably stereotypical) portrayal of women’s colleges, and I didn’t give a sh*t how I presented myself throughout my own co-educational academic career.  And also I know that there are some male readers of knitting magazines and male knitwear designers, but they seem to know how to behave themselves in this largely feminine sphere…

**I guess the WWII folks aren’t so abundant anymore – I’m not keeping up with the passage of time, so the dude is more likely pre-boomer, but not by much…

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February 14, 2014 · 12:39 PM

Snowed in… AGAIN

I’m done with this winter.

snowy trees*

Last week we lost power for a few days.  My brain became more fogged than usual and I started shifting to the left.  I guessed I was getting hypothermia in my own apartment so I laid under a couple of down duvets until clearer thoughts came back… if you could call them that.

N keeps getting snow days from work; I don’t since I work from home.

We’re also sick and I’ve been feeling too crappy to make stuff.

I used to be used to being snowed in from time to time.

I’d take it as an opportunity to do wonderful things like take a bunch of random knitting needles I’ve gathered from thrift shops and yard sales –

needles-pile**

And pair them up.

needles-paired

And of course put them back in the old pasta tin I keep them in and they jumble themselves up once more.

I almost never use straight needles anymore, at least the long ones, but I like them as artifacts.

My red Formica table is in storage and I miss it.

I made a little heat-able pillow filled with cherry pits a few years ago.

cherry-pit-bag

I love cherries and eat pounds of them each June and early July.

It’s about 6″ x 8″ and filled with nearly a pound of pits.  It’s great for warming knitting-sore wrists or cold hands.

I’d like another, but I don’t think I want to go through boiling and scrubbing and scouring and sanding pits again.

It’s useless when the power goes out too.

*That picture isn’t even the most recent snow – I’ve given up, I can’t be bothered, I don’t want to have any documentation of this sh*t anymore…

**This doesn’t look right, seems like it should be the other way around, but that didn’t look right either and this is the direction I took it – deleting and re-attaching the variously oriented pics was the high point of the day.

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January 25, 2014 · 7:37 AM

Darn it pills and lint

I spent an evening this week closing up the holes in some of our sweaters.  I’ve been seeing beautiful and skillful examples of mending in the blogisphere lately and though lovely, they make me feel anxious.  Must I learn to do everything perfectly?  To have textile conservator-level mending skills to make repairs nearly invisible or mad creative ones to do a perfect herringbone in a cheeky accent color?  Don’t get me wrong, I love these things and love that someone is doing them and doing them well, but for me, I still embrace  absolute utilitarianism and efficiency when it comes to darning/mending/repairing.  I also usually wait until I have at least three garments that need to be fixed before I sit down to do them, even though it means I’ll probably need three different thread colors and it would have taken just as much time to do them one at a time.   All of the items that got a new lease on life were thrift store finds (some decades old) and I’m always what- amazed, impressed, happy?  I don’t quite know the feeling, but that these things have endurance and history, both unknown and our own, and can outlive us.

Darn-elbow

N’s favorite cashmere sweater is just a few years old and was probably fairly new when it was given up by its original owner.  (Unbeknownst to me my sister-in-law gave my brother the exact same as a [new] gift around the same time I found N’s in the thrift store.)  He wore it for work and not-work and everything in between several times a week and this year his elbow popped through.  It’s now been patched but retired from work-wear.

darn-pills

I’m also chief pill-picker.  I hate pills but I somewhat, and somewhat perversely, like picking them off.  I’ll periodically give an item a good pick and then a vigorous brushing and I’m always amazed about how much fuzzy detritus comes away… how much crap we carry around on us and how a sweater can continue to shed yet never feel as if it’s going bald overall.  But I do really hate pills on hand-knits (I’m looking at you Malabrigo!) especially when you’ve done a textured stitch and the pills hide in little valleys.

darn-lint

That little pile of pills and fuzz got me thinking about hoarders (and my fear of becoming one, though I do draw the line with things that rot and stink as being only for trash/compost).  And then N bought some new kitchen towels – some white, some red – that gave off this nice rose-pink lint in the dryer.  I know dryer lint has many uses, and once upon a time when I made paper I often used the stuff, but to keep it now seems a little excessive.  I can’t compost, don’t have a pet, haven’t spilled any oil, don’t need to start a fire, and I’m not making paper or papier mache at the moment…

…or will I be?

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January 18, 2014 · 8:34 AM

Caaaaashmeeeeere…

I had a huge thrifting score a few weeks ago.

I hadn’t been shopping for months because I’m too broke now even for thrift stores, and I already have a decent stash of wearables, frogables, and feltables.  But I needed just a few more things to complete or begin a few more things.

Thriftscore-cashcardi-grey

While there I found my sweater Shangri-La.

I can’t understand why someone would get rid of this: 100% cashmere, a nice shade of grey, and no issues apart from a few easily removed pills on one side where someone probably carried her purse.

Yes, it’s baggy and shapeless, but holy hell, it is utter bliss to wear.  It’s perfect for sleepwear or just lounging about too, so why would someone get rid of it?  Even if you lost a ton of weight, it still feels nice to wear, so unless you gained a ton, like an actual ton, or died, I see no reason to be rid of this.

I’m not the sort of shameful woman who does happy dances and squeals and all those sorts of public behaviors that continue to set women back decades, but this was one of the few times I came close as I cracked a faint but noticeable half-smile when I found it and hurriedly shoved it securely down into my cart.

And for $5.99 on the half-off day – it was only $2.99!!!

Thriftscore-cashcardi-grey-det

This also solves my need for a new long thin sweater, though I’m still planning on knitting one eventually.

I picked up another one to wear too – merino & cashmere, in perfect condition, also quite cheap.  The tag said it was from Fall 2004, so perhaps someone thought 10 years of ownership was enough?   The tag also emphatically stated DRY CLEAN ONLY, but it survived and flourished in its sudsy watery bath.

Thriftscore-stripeyT

And even more cashmere!!!

Thriftscore-cashpile

Most of these have some sort of damage or kill-worthy preppyness, so they will be harvested for their yarn or turned into linings for hats and such.

And I found a few sweaters made with good sturdy wool or wool/nylon blends in colors I like which will be harvested for their yarn as well.  The one on top is another (misshapen and holey) Shetland – I think I have enough Shetland sweaters to harvest an interesting palette of yarn now.  I was intending to make a big Hap shawl out of them, but I love the vintage spencer dresses seen here and here and here and would love to make something similar at some point.

Thriftscore-woolypile

I’m looking forward to making something out of the stripey one on the left too, perhaps along the lines of the scarf I made last year from recycled stripey sweater yarn.

stripey 007 - Copy

And it has already been reduced to a pile of lovely squiggles.

stripey 023 - Copy

Then a tower (what were you thinking?) of yarn cakes.

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December 1, 2013 · 10:23 AM

Doin’ the but… tin…

I had to save my biggest and best tin for a post of its own.

But-tin closedI first saw this tin in a photographic negative I was cataloging in my old job.  The tin was on the counter in someone’s kitchen in the 1940s.  I read the writing through a tiny loupe and was aghast at the boasts of “scientifically processed” and claims of healthy hydrogenated vegetable shortening!  And what is that graphic?  A woman on a scale inferring that potato chips were diet food?  Hells yeah!  I love potato chips, though they’ve done nothing for my figure, unless of course I eat enough to cause severe anal leakage, but I’m a snob for the olive oil chips anyway.  I started seeing this tin in antique/junk stores but they were often rusty, or the lid didn’t easily come off, or were just too damn overpriced.  Generally, if I want something that isn’t really needed, I wait for serendipity to take over or to lose interest in it.  However, after a year of looking for this in the right condition for the right price, I broke down and found one on Ebay, so it all worked out.  Maybe serendipity is just an online market.

But in my quest for simplicity and curing former impulses and diseases of the hoarding of neat sh*t variety, I have a general rule for visiting antique/junk shops – buy nothing bigger than what would fit into my hand.*  In theory I like some kinds old jewelry so that could be allowable, but I’ve never actually bought any old jewelry and it is usually more than I want to spend.  I have more tchotzkies than years left in my statistical lifespan, so I generally resist the cute/weird but useless item.  And I have nearly a zero interest level in military, presidential, I-am-man-and-hear-me-roar (or just destroy your lives and countries) artifacts, so old bullets, campaign buttons, coins, pins for distinctions, etc. don’t get the slightest glance from me.

But what else is little and can be extremely practical, and thus 100% approved?

Let’s open that giant tin, shall we?

But-tin openOh yeah, hells yeah, buttons!

I buy buttons that I think will look good on knits I’ve never knitted (nor will).

I buy buttons that I think I can re-sell for decent money (though I haven’t yet).

I buy buttons to replace those already on my clothes (which I’ve done once).

I buy buttons to use in my “crafts” (I do this occasionally with singles, but would never break up a set).

I buy buttons to repurpose them as jewelry (though not to make country button necklace shittery).

I buy buttons to one day feed my burning desire to amass them in a giant heap and then catalog them one by one.

But-tin cardAnd I buy buttons because some are nearly art and quite frame-able or worthy of display on their own.

(I didn’t tear off that one button in the upper left, it came that way)

But-tin jarI’ve had to start a new jar nearly the same size as the tin for the buttons I remove and save from clothing I cut up and turn into other things.

(And yes, I do have another boxful of buttons that you don’t get to see).

*I’ve got some big paws, so my fingers can really wrap a decent-sized find, and I do break this rule constantly if I find things that are fiber-oriented and thus can be considered a business, art, or research expense (but really, I can only kid myself so far…)

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