Combined Boye Needle Charts

Kevin Pinkerton of Treadle On has just finished a wonderful resource for antique sewing machine collectors. With the help of Boye Needle Case owners, he has made a data base of the information on the the ingenious needle display. The pdf version of his charts are available for download in the right side bar of this blog and at Kevin's online album sites:

http://community.webshots.com/user/kpinkert
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kpinkert/sets/

Many thanks to Kevin and contributing Treadle On members for a wonderful resource.

Pincushions for the Sew Green Fleet

Last year, at our Sew Green activity at Walla Walla's farmers' market, I only had one pincushion among three machines. This year, each machine will have a pincushion plus one for the filling station.

The brightly colored pincushion at the top of the photo was made for me by Alyce Suzanne on the treadle owners list. She very graciously made me one when my exchange partner failed to come through. Her pincushion is bright and cheery. The pincushion is weighted nicely as it is filled with poly pellets.

The pincushion on the left is made from a Birthday Bash block. I made too many for the exchange so I have to figure out where to use them up. It's a little wimpy. I didn't stuff it enough.

The remaining two are from upholstery samples. In March, my 4-H Super Saturday class was in the home ec. room at the middle school at the end of the block. The teacher had tons of boxes of fabric swatch books. She let me and the other volunteers in my class take as many sample books as we wanted. What fun and a great reward for our busy 2 hour session.

More Coming Attractions

I have been busy making some thank you gifts. Three special people who have blessed me in the last year deserve a little gift. All three will be a TOGA so I made the gifts all alike. ;

If you need a seasonal grocery tote like the ones pictured, you can download a tutorial at the line below:

Grocery Tote Tutorial

Portland TOGA: Sneak Peeks

The Treadle On treadle owners are having a gathering in Portland, OR, on October 10th. I am working on some quick projects to share and samples of what vintage attachments can do. My first project is a thread snips basket. This is a handy little scrap catcher for thread trimmings. The shape is reminiscent of a style of ash tray from the 60's and 70's. The tutorial for the project was up at another blog but it appears to have been taken down.

The basket is made from 2 squares of fabric and Pellon Fleece or Warm and Natural Cotton Batting. I used a 12 inch squares as a foundation for my strip piecing, then I trimmed up to 11 inches.

If you want to know how to make this handy little basket, you are going to have to come to TOGA in Portland.

Note: I finally found my bookmark for the tutorial. The freebie had to come down. There was a copyright infringement. The project has another name: Fabric Catch All from Liberty Weaver by Diane Bachman in Leola, PA.

If you want to try a slightly different version of the basket that is free, check out this one:

http://www.free-quilting.com/list.html?criteria=FQ00129&cat_id=434

It is a free download, made from a 12 inch quilt block featuring small blocks in each corner instead of tacking the corner down with a button, and the dart on the side is angled differently to form a straight corner instead.