Using Cone Thread on a Sewing Machine

I was searching for more thrifty ways (little or no cost) to use a cone of thread on a regular sewing machine, because I want to convert a local quilting group over to using cones of thread, instead of spools.  I found a new and awesome way, only using an empty bobbin! I found this blog post at Sophia’s Sundries. The photos are from Sophia’s blog post.

I tried threading one of my machines this way, and it worked! This should also work putting the bobbin on a vertical spool pin if your bobbin winder is on the front of the machine, as it is on some of the vintage sewing machines that I sew on sometimes. Please note, especially if you don’t read Sophia’s blog link, that the thread goes through the little hole in the bobbin before it goes on to the normal threading of the machine. That keeps the thread from wandering off to other destinations.

Thanks Sophia! I’ll be using this trick myself!

Give it a try!

‘Dixie’, the Singer 301A (LBOW)

Light Beige Oyster White is what they call the color of this machine. I call it two tone, mostly because I can’t remember what LBOW stands for. I’m old, and I never did have a memory. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it!

The other day I was surfing Craigslist (such a dangerous thing to do!) and I found this nice Singer 301A. She was born in 1956. (I love this model of machine, just as I love Singer 404, 401A, 403, 500A, and 503A. They all have the aluminum bodies and gear driven internal motors.) I didn’t do anything for a day or two, but last night before I went to bed, I emailed, and today, we picked her up in Dixon, Illinois. It was a nice day for a ride (just a ‘little’ windy…Auntie Em! Auntie Em!).  We brought her home, I gave her a bath, oiled her, changed the needle, wound a bobbin, put a 1/4” presser foot on and Louie changed the foot control to an electronic one.

She’s ready to go!

Front…

Back…

I bought another ‘very modern Brother’ machine at Goodwill in Sterling, but I haven’t checked it out yet, and if it works out, it’s going to be donated.

Have a great week! Where did the weekend go?

New Home MyLock 334 Serger Fix

Friday morning about 9:00, my phone rang. On the other end, was ‘Jan’ from a local church quilting group. I had not met her before, but I would very soon. I had already met ‘Peggy’ a few weeks ago when she asked me to take a look at a machine that she picked up at Goodwill. I had a nice visit with Peggy when she picked up her machine and one I donated to the group, and since that visit, ‘Joann’ had called me to ask me about looking at a serger that was donated to their group. This morning Jan said she had the serger, and asked me if I could take a look at it. I told her I really did NOT know much about sergers, but I had passed the ‘scared’ stage of threading them awhile back, so I told her I would at least check to see if it was threaded properly.

Jan came over about half an hour later with serger in hand. She was going to leave it, but I invited her to stay and let me see if I could get it going. The right needle thread cone was completely gone. There was only one needle in the serger, and I found that it was in backward, and not all the way up inside the holder. I added another needle (thank the Lord the serger uses regular sewing machine needles). I checked the threading and it looked ok, so I tried to form a thread chain with it. It would rotate a few turns, and although it was making a thread chain, something inside would ‘hit’ on something else and not want to move. That was a mystery for awhile. I thought the right looper was hitting the bottom of the plate, so I messed with that for awhile, but that just didn’t make sense. It started moving again better, (after ‘tweaking’ the left looper with my pliars---that’s what someone who doesn’t know what they are doing, does) but I noticed that the left looper kept breaking thread. By this time, it was about 11:30 and I needed to just ‘give up’ for awhile. I also needed to quit to get ready to go have a mammogram, so I told her if she would leave it, I would try again later, but if I failed, she would have to try to find someone more qualified than me. I showed her a few sewing machines that I could offer to the group, she chose two, and after a brief visit in the driveway, she left.

This afternoon after my mammogram, I came home and had lunch, then got ready to go to an Easter Cantata, so the serger sat, still not working.

Tonight, we got home about 10:30, and about 11:00 after Louie went to bed, I thought I would take another ‘stab’ at seeing if I could get it working. At this point, the left looper thread was breaking, and it wouldn’t even form a thread chain anymore. I thought I would just completely start from scratch and see if I could get it to make a thread chain. I pulled all the thread out, then decided to give it a bath before I tried to rethread. It looked like it had sat in a garage, as it had what looked to me like gravel dust on it. I cleaned out all the grooves, and I also ran the edge of my dish cloth through the tension disks. I started over fresh, and completely threaded it again. I did notice a thread guide on the left looper that I missed the first time, but still it would not form a thread chain. I scratched my head, and started turning the hand wheel and trying to see why. I noticed that the left looper was grazing the needles and pushing them back a little bit as it passed, so I ‘tweaked’ the left looper back just a little bit, and it started to make a chain! YaHoo! Mountain Dew! (How many people remember that?!!!)

Everything fell into place after that. I still don’t know why earlier it sounded and acted like something was hitting, and it didn’t want to turn, but it all started working! Maybe it all just needed to move as I think this machine has sat for a very long time. (Arthritis?)

I set both needle tension disks on 4 and both looper tension disks on 5, and serged several test strips on my c-fold towels. I think it’s ready to go report for duty!

Persistence and patience paid off, and I feel so blessed to have been able to get this working so the quilting ladies can do their work. I don’t know if I learned anything from this, but I did win this one!

It’s all good!

God’s Been Good!

Friday night we were blessed once again when we went to Morrison, Illinois to see Emmanuel Reformed Church’s Voices of Praise Easter Cantata.





Friends Connie and Tom joined us this time, along with Louie, my brother Jack, and Judy (Dave’s wife). Dave was in the choir singing like an angel!


It was another excellent performance, and so much fun! Thank you Dave and Judy for inviting us once more!
May 16th, we’re going back to see The Perrys!

He’s ALIVE and I’m Forgiven!

John 19:30
... he said, "It is finished!"

Jesus knew he was suffering the crucifixion for a purpose. Earlier he had said in John 10:18 of his life, "No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father."

^{Matthew 28:6}

He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.

Mark 16:1-7

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, "Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?"

But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

"Don't be alarmed," he said. "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, 'He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.' "

How Great Thou Art

April Quilting

Today was our quilting day for April. Kate took her turn at presenting the block. I don’t know what the name of this quilt block is. Kate didn’t either.  I’m not sure if she found it somewhere, or if she designed it herself, but I like it! It was quick and easy.

After I made my block, I cut some fabric up into 5.5” squares for the Park View ladies that I had, then I sewed a quilt top together for them for a nursing home. When quilting was over, Christie and I went to the Quad Cities and saw the movie ‘God’s Not Dead’. That was the second time for me, and the first for her. She loved it as much as I did. We went to Best Buy and I bought ONE HP printer, because it was wireless, (instead of two), and then we went to IHOP for supper. We had a nice visit, then we drove home. We got back into town about 9:30, then I made a huge mess in my office, and set up the printer for my computer. I also set it up for Louie’s computer, so now he can print from his computer in his office, to this printer in my office. I think we will be very happy with it. I have already scanned several things into pdf files, so that makes me very happy, as I used my last two printers for that purpose a lot. (Photo: Test printing an email from Louie’s office to my office)

There. That’s better!

This morning, I unhooked Louie’s old printer. Bye bye old printers!

Next month, May, will be our last quilting session until September.  I don’t know how the last nine quilting months moved so fast, because the winter months drug on and on. It will be nice for summer to be here, but I will miss the girls.

Singer Stylist 543

Saturday, late morning, I picked up my sisterinlove Polly, and we met my brother for lunch, then we went to Cedar Rapids junkin’! I only found one sewing machine…..a Singer Stylist 543.

Normally, I RUN as far away as I can from this era of machine, because I know there are plastic gears. I checked to see if the zig was zagging, and it appeared to, so I took a chance. I always say, the foot control is worth the purchase price, so I bought it, thinking I could find a good home for it. This is about a 1978 era machine.

I was pleasantly pleased at how good the gears looked, and it stitched just the way it should.

The machine did not come with instructions, so I went to the Singer manual site, and downloaded a manual for it. You can find this manual HERE. Thank you Singer Company! I really didn’t need one for myself, but should it get passed on, someone else might need instructions.

Unfortunately, when I was trying to print this manual, I realized what my printer had been trying to tell me for the past week or so. (Caution! Paper Jam!…except there was no paper jam!) It’s tired, and worn out. The moving parts don’t want to move well anymore. The printer would struggle, then stop halfway through a page, then start up again. What I got when the pages finally emerged, were pages I was unable to use. I finished up on Louie’s printer, which is my OLD printer. It printed ok, once I restarted the computer and unplugged it a couple times to get it go, but it was PAINFULLY SLOW, so I think today I will be shopping for a new printer, or TWO. 

I didn’t realize when I bought the Stylist 543 that the bottom arm cover was missing. That cover protects the gears on the underside of the machine, as in the bobbin area, over to about the middle of the machine. So what does a girl do when she needs a part? She hits the internet with a frenzy and searches until she finds one. I found one for a little bit older model with the same body shape, and it is on it’s way.  The total cost of both the machine and the cover together, was still not a bad price for the machine.

The only problem I am having now, is whether I want to part with it. You see, it looks almost identical to the very first NEW sewing machine that I owned. I think the model I had was a 534. Louie bought a brand new Singer for me right after we were married. It was in a cabinet. Unfortunately, it broke a gear several years later, and I panicked and replaced it with another new machine. The replacement never was as good as the 534. You see, the older sewing machines with all metal gears REALLY are the best, if you want them to last forever.

April 25, 2014~ UPDATE! This machine has now been donated to a local church group. May it sew many quilt tops!

Do you have a hard time parting with items that remind you of a special time in your life?

Today is quilting day at my house!

Have a wonderful weekend.

PVQM Quilting DayCation and God’s NOT Dead!

Tuesday I took another vacation day from work to go sew with my favorite Park View girls! I sewed a quilt top for a nursing home.

I realized after I got home, (DUH!) that there were several of us who were wearing RED. I was wearing a red Maquoketa Cardinals hoodie.

There were a few other gals there, which I did not get photos of, (sorry Connie, Jennifer and Jo) but the group was smaller that day. It seems to be the same core group that shows up each time I am there. They have become good friends and I am truly thankful.

A few of us went to the local restaurant for dessert and a beverage, then three of us went to see the movie ‘God’s NOT Dead’. AWESOME movie! I WILL own it when it comes out on DVD.