Coming back to quilting after a long hiatus

In the late 90’s, I owned a tiny internet fabric business called Pine Lake Fabrics.  At that time, quilting as a hobby was somewhat new to me, but I found that my true passion was collecting fabric.  I figured that my dream job would be to own a fabric store, so I decided to start small with an internet mail order business.  

Unfortunately, the reality of the business was dealing with vendors and their inconsistent deliveries, the half hour drive each day to face long lines at the post office, and daily fabric dust headaches….oh, and the fact that I was making at least 4 times the money working at an IT job, and I couldn’t afford to quit for the small wages I was making in the scaled down fabric business ;-).

I either needed to take out a loan and go whole hog into retail or move on to something else.  My brain trumped my heart.  Sadly, in 1999, after 3 years I liquidated my business...after of course keeping a yard or two of each fabric for myself!     

About the time I quit the business, the WayBackMachine started archiving my web page.  I had arrived, apparently, and didn't even know it ;-).  Here's a link to the last entry from my business: http://web.archive.org/web/19990125102233/http://www.pinelakefabrics.com/

Ending the business was a relief, although I missed the customers. They were truly the part that was like a dream.

Tired and burned out, I took a hiatus from quilting.  Had I not ended up with a fabric collection that would put the GDP of some small countries to shame, I may have not gone back to quilting ever again. 

2/3 of my fabric collection, and a secondary use for exercise bikes.

Last year, my concern that my fabric would literally rot on the shelves had peaked. I decided that I either needed to start making quilts again or sell off my fabrics. So I gave quilting a try again. Because I could not justify buying more fabric, I had to focus on actually using the fabric rather than on fabric collecting.  The different focus really created a passion for quilting that I previously never had. So here I am.

The first post-hiatus quilt top that I almost finished was a variation on a corn and beans quilt.  

First post-hiatus quilt top.  Still needs final border.

Knowing that the next step was to quilt this top, a task that required taking my dinosaur longarm quilter -- "a Gammill PDQ-30" from the 80's -- out of mothballs, I took another year hiatus, LOL.

I’m back now, with a new focus and energy, and with the “Quiltosaurus” out of mothballs. One interesting thing I discovered was that in the 13 years away from quilting, my patience level has drastically improved. I had always thought that Quiltosaurus was a temperamental girl, to say the least.  In fact, I believed that her previous owner had swindled me because the machine seemed so hard to use.  In reality, the problems were greatly due my patience level.  From reading others' experiences, I've found that longarms can generally be a tad bit temperamental.  With the new-found studious attention to detail that maybe comes from age and owning dogs, I sat down and really learned how to adjust tension, and learned the mechanics of what makes a longarm machine run.  I literally greased the wheels, replaced the motor, and turned Quiltosaurus into a girl that would really facilitate finishing quilts!

Quiltosaurus, a 30 inch longarm, a product of the 80's, and a holdover from the industrial revolution.  A 100% manual machine with parts that will survive the next dinosaur extinction. She is the definition of workhorse, or maybe a "workosaurus"

A couple of truly surprising developments have arisen while I was away for 10 years.

1. The advent of “Modern” quilting which seems to have created an “us versus them-ness” in quilting that I’d never seen in the past.
2. The invention of the $25 spool of thread.  I exaggerate, but only a little.

I will talk, probably, about each of these things. However, my focus next time and likely for several subsequent articles will be #2, including why I may soon have the 'quilt police' after me.

Truly, how can anyone resist Maxilock Swirls.

Stay tuned! I hope you come visit me again next Threadsday!

Root Beer Cream, vintage Kenmore 117.841

In the last year or so, I've re-introduced myself to my quilting hobby and found I have a great deal to catch up on!  I'm hoping to blog about some of my discoveries about threads, machine quilting, piecing, and generally, the hobby of patchwork. 

As my first topic, I'd like to introduce you to a sewing machine I've named "Root Beer Cream," or "Rootie" for short.  She is a Kenmore 117.841, and a new addition to our "quilty" household.  I'm not sure if we're supposed to keep her, but we definitely get to play with her for awhile.

Her name is Rootbeer Cream

A little history
In the late 50's, White Sewing Machines was under pressure to produce a zig-zag machine or risk losing their Sears contract -- which they later lost anyway.  Knowing nothing about how to develop this new-fangled type of machine, they enlisted the help of a Western German company, Gritzner-Kayser to produce the Kenmore 117.841.    (Source: Link).  The "Kenmore 84" was a top of the line machine in its day, costing about $239 new.  Since Gritzner-Kayser was soon acquired by Pfaff,  some consider it technically a Pfaff.

Rootie's history
Alan's (my SO's) mother Sarah acquired Rootie in 1957, as a birthday present from her parents.  At that time, Rootie was portable, but later Sarah acquired a pretty cabinet for her.

Rootie has "lived" in Annapolis, Maryland, Bellefontaine, Ohio and Newcastle, Washington.  She is more well-traveled than I am!  The little machine has sewn maternity clothes, baby clothes, and kids clothes as well as one embroidered "top" for sister Sue.   A couch reupholstering set our Rootie out of balance and I'm afraid she was mothballed in 1986 because of it.  Upon hearing that I had taken an interest in sewing machines, Sarah loaned Alan and me Rootie this year, calling it a birthday present.  She now lives in the little burg of Sammamish, WA.

I should mention that something in little Rootie's life must have been traumatic, because she still has the bandaid to prove it!    Would she fall apart if I remove it? ;-).

Rootie's war wound ;-).

A feature rich machine
This shiny, almost metallic root beer-colored gem is capable by default of zig-zagging and straight stitching.  The straight stitch is actually a zero width zig-zag, so it's sort of an almost straight stitch/zig-zag hybrid.  Rootie can also do the serpentine stitch, something that Pfaffs notoriously can't do.....She is definitely special.

Serpentine stitch-erooo.

Rootie is also expandable!  She comes with "cams," which are cartridges that allow her to sew at least 18 different decorative stitches (2 per side), and more than that if you creatively change the stitch length and width.

Cam insertion point

Extra cams, nine in all including the one in the machine, each is two-sided

 
Along with her decorative stitches, our little girl comes with built in memories.  When we first started her up, Alan said, "that's it!  That's the sound I remember from when I was a kid."  No doubt her smooth, quiet click will continue to conjure up good childhood memories along with the well-sewn, personable stitches.  She has helped mend many a knee-hole.

Rootie, showing off her pretty sound.

Rootie is sturdy and well made, and has contributed to inserting into our lexicon the notion of quality German engineering. She will be a pleasure to have and hopefully will at some point "know" the joys of quiltmaking ;-).  She likely has the markings for it (note the tape)!

 Update from Alan's sister Jane:  "And after reading your blog post, she has sewn a quilt. My grandmother made a doll sized four patch quilt kit for me and I pieced that quilt top on her!"  So little Rootie isn't a rookie to quilting either!

The used sewing machine world is a treasure trove, where the adage, "they don't make 'em like they used to!" is proven over and again.  Rootie is surely a case in that point.   We love having a respectable machine like her.

Looks more like a car emblem

 I hope you come back next "Threadsday" for more of my thread adventures.