R.I.P. Bernina. Welcome, Singer.

I hauled two of my dysfunctional sewing machines to Joy Trott; one my beloved but definitely handicapped Bernina and an older and quite annoying White, to see if anything could be done to keep them operable.

The verdict: yes on one and no on the other. The White works all right but lacks the muscle for what I need. This one I am passing on to my non-sewing daughter to use until she figures out if she eventually will become a sewing daughter - good for light work but don't ask too much of it because it won't carry the load.

The No Decree goes to Bernina (sob) - it's not going to sew for me any longer and I'll donate it to Joy to use as a parts machine, should she ever see another of that age that might need a piece or two.

When I made the decision not to pour anymore money into the Bernina, Joy came to my rescue once again by allowing me to take home different sewing machines until I could find the one that is good enough to pick up where my Bernina left off. Luckily, this took just two attempts. I knew as soon as I threaded up the first one, a very cool looking retro Dressmaker, it was not THE one. Ugh. The second and what came to be the last one, is that Singer I saw weeks ago. Joy allowed me to bring it home, I set it up on blocks so the rocker arm wouldn't hit the desktop I use to sew on, threaded the machine and sewed away. Ahhh, success! This baby will plow through the doubled and tripled seams without a hiccup.

Today I returned to Joy's to pick up the sewing table that goes with the machine. My next step: move my current sewing desk somewhere (!?), rewire the Singer to its original sewing table and get sewing.

A side note: I was able to look up the Model Number on my Singer and found out it was made in1947! How cool is that? I'm in love.

Zaz and Moe. Zowie!

Love Fabric? Love Unique and Creative Wearables? Then check out Zaz and Moe, Susan Delsandro Hellier's website for wearable art. 

I was wowed when I came across her booth at the Yarmouth Clam Festival Craft Fair. The creative designs of her skirts completely took me by surprise with their unique approach to creating a woman's skirt. The simple cut of the common a-line skirt are a backdrop to the cut-through designs (there must be a formal name for this technique, but I don't know what it is), which are hand stitched to the backing fabric. In fact, Susan hand stitches her skirts entirely without any machine work. I get a mellowing and calming feeling about how she approaches her craft by avoiding the "machine." 

Susan had other items in her booth but I can't remember what they were - her skirts loomed large in my memory, I guess. But you can check out her website and see for yourself. I urge you to do that!

Quick Note on Today's Freeport Community Market

For anyone looking for Yo Momma's Aprons Strings or Anne Bonny's Booty on this perfectly lovely Maine summer day, please note that the market hours have been tweaked a bit:

Start: 1 PM
End: 6 PM

This is to accommodate the showing of Shakespeare's "The Tempest" on L.L.Bean's Discovery Park. This is free to the public and, from what I saw of the setup last week, looks to be quite a production. A perfect summer's evening entertainment after our perfect market day.

Come and experience a full day's entertainment in Freeport today.

Time for Aprons and Portland's Picnic Music + Arts Festival!

Long time, no Sew.

A week's recovery after the Clam Festival quickly turned into three weeks of almost zero sewing. I think I managed to get two aprons completed fairly quickly during that first week, still being in that sew, sew, sewing mode. But then came two weeks of working my regular job during the day (my usual hours being from 4-9 PM) and all good intentions to keep up a reasonable sewing pace quickly went out the window. I pooped out once I get home after working during the day and was lucky to manage a few chores before hanging up my apron and calling it a day.

Now that those two weeks of working days are over (hallelujah!) it's time to step up production. August 28th is the 3rd Annual Picnic Music + Arts Festival in Portland and I have some serious catching up to do. In the non-sewing interim I went a bit crazy and did some serious fabric ordering so will have no lack of fun and exciting fabrics to choose from when I get back in the swing of things.

I'm ready now!