Tuesday 19 March 2013

Meet my Machines

Stacey over at The Tilted Quilt and Erin from Sew at Home Mummy have teamed up to bring us the Meet My Machine blog hop.  For a whole week some fabulous quilters are going to share all of the details about their sewing machines and Stacey is also hosting a linky party so that we can share a post about our machines too.

The Tilted Quilt

So here are mine.

For Christmas 2010 my hubby got me this beautiful old Singer machine from ebay.  It dates back to 1895!  Sadly separated from it's original table and put on this wooden plinth in the 1940-50's.



We researched the type of table it should have been on and this is the picture we found.


And then several months later look what I found at a car boot sale!  It's morbidly but aptly called a coffin top.



I have a treadle in my conservatory that dates back to around the same time, but it has a marble top not the original wooden table top, maybe one day I'll find a way of uniting the three pieces - you never know.  In the meantime the machine nestles in the dining room windowsill so that it is out of the way of prying little people, but it also gives me a focus in the window other than my neighbours fence which is the only view out of that particular window!

That same Christmas night in the evening when we were all sitting around discussing sewing, or rather learning to, hubby gave me his credit card and told me to get online and order a brand new machine so that I could have a machine with a manual and learn to sew properly! What a gem he is!  Not knowing I was heading for quilting I purchased this Toyota machine which has lots of stitch options that I'll probably never use, but it did come with a quarter inch piecing foot and I was also able to purchase a Toyota walking foot aswell.  She serves me well.


Back in May 2011 my friends mum was kind enough to let me give this little beauty a new home.


It works, came with spare belts and has a cute little extending leaf on the end.  The tabletop flips over leaving the machine kind of tucked underneath and a flat surface on the top.  The wood needs a little TLC, it has obviously been well used and could do with rubbing down and revarnishing.
 













Right now the machine part is folded away and the tabletop is covered in storage boxes full of fabric so we can't even see the poor thing at the moment...

And if I could buy any machine I wanted?  Well I saw this little cutie in one of the other ladies sewing rooms and had to google it. 



Designed by a Quilter, for Quilters the HQ Sweet Sixteen Sit-Down Quilting Machine is a high-functioning long-arm system designed to provide a professional machine for the home studio. It is a straight-stitch machine for free-motion quilting, but can also be used for free-motion embroidery.

It sounds fabulous right?!?

Thanks for letting me share my machines and their stories with you.

Happy Sewing :o)

6 comments:

Canadian Abroad said...

Isn't your husband a sweetie! Nice to meet your machines.

Muv said...

Hello Karen,

I've just found your blog through the blog hop and have enjoyed looking at your machines.

The sphinx is a model 27K and the handle is original - it wasn't a treadle, it would have come in a dark wood base to match the coffin top.

The treadle is a 201K, top of the range model.

Fabulous machines. Have you made a quilt yet just using the old machines?

Love,
Muv

Sewing Mom said...

How lovely! I think this hop is so fun, getting to see everyone's sewing machines. Thanks for sharing today!

Stacey Napier said...

Great machines and great hubby letting you splurge for your new machine ;) I'm wondering if Toyota is produced in the US under a different label - I don't think I've ever seen one of those over here. Beautiful old machines - making me want to get one too. Thanks for linking up with us today!

Missy Shay said...

Have you tried sewing with your hand crank? I have a hand crank that I piece my quilts with and I love it. It is very therapeutic because it is so quiet and relaxing! You can find information on Treadleon.net on how to make a treadle table for your machines. You have some beautiful machines!

✄ Erin @ Sew at Home Mummy ✄ said...

OMG. I'm still drooling over the first Singer. BEAUTIFUL!!
And I didn't know that Toyota made home sewing machines!! Very cool! Do you have troubles finding somewhere that'll service it?
Thank you SO much for linking up with Stacey and I - I really hope you had fun writing your post, because I sure had fun reading it!
Best,
Erin

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