Mrs Buckingham moved in with me right before Christmas. She wasn’t exactly a Christmas gift, I just happened to find her at this time of the year. Mrs Buckingham – in case you are wondering – is a beautiful vintage Singer treadle machine, a Model 15. All my vintage machines have names, just my modern computerized Pfaff machine is just “my sewing machine”. For some reason I could never think of a good name for her.

Mrs Buckingham gave me a bit of a headache too when I tried to find a name for her. It wasn’t until I opened the drawers and found the original manual in one of them. In neat handwriting it was marked “Mrs Buckingham”. I am assuming that this was the name of the original owner, and it only seemed fitting to choose this name for the machine.

Before I started my quilting business I used to write a personal sewing blog, and I posted pictures of all my machines when I acquired them but I have never written about my collection here. For anyone interested, here is a quick overview. Most of these machines came without a manual, and I did some research to figure out the model numbers. I am fairly confident they are correct but I am not an expert, so please don’t yell at me if you find a mistake 😉

My first vintage Singer was this black Featherweight, her name is Noelle, and I have pieced quite a few quilt tops with her. She was my travel machine back in Germany and accompanied me to retreats and other sewing events.

When we moved to Canada and our boxes hadn’t arrived yet, a friend gave me her mother’s Singer machine from the early 60s… meet Sweet Caroline, a Singer Slant-O-Matic 403 special. I was able to get a darning foot and even used her for free-motion quilting.

This is Hope, the first machine we purchased in Canada, a Singer 201. My husband found her on Craigslist, the owners were moving and wanted to get rid of her. The power cord was missing, and we decided to risk it and purchased her anyway. We were able to use Sweet Caroline’s power cord for Hope, and she was in great shape, just needed to be cleaned and oiled.

Then my husband discovered that he liked working on vintage machines and started looking for them on Craigslist and at garage sales. This is how Heather moved in with us, a Singer 128 vibrating shuttle 3/4-size machine.

At a garage sale, we found Cleo, a Singer 127. She is closely related to Heather, the only difference is that Cleo is a full size machine. My husband was still pretending, by the way, that he was buying these machines for me…

This is the one machine that I really wanted, and we searched for quite a while before we found my little “Sugar Fairy”. Noelle, my black Featherweight is a European machine, and because of the different voltage I couldn’t just plug her in after we moved to Canada. So instead of getting a voltage converter, I started looking for a white Featherweight with North American voltage. Makes sense, right?? These white machines are much less common than the black ones and more expensive but we finally managed to find one in good shape and for a good price.

I haven’t bought a vintage machine since 2015 but all my other machines are electric, and when Mrs Buckingham crossed my path, I figured that I really needed to add a treadle machine to the collection 🙂

“Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.” And life happened again, and I had to readjust. I was planning on doing a Christmas post last weekend and then take some time off over the holidays. Then my dad passed away last Saturday. He had been sick for years, it started with a stroke in 2007 and went downhill ever since. He spent the last two years in a care home, fell asleep on Friday night and never woke up again. It was as peaceful as possible, and I am especially grateful that he wasn’t hooked up to any machines and that there was no effort to resuscitate him. Naturally I spent a lot of time going back and forth with my mom, trying to work out the arrangements, book a flight to Germany etc. I will be gone until mid-January. Boy, am I glad that I decided not to start another BOM at the beginning of the year.

We had most of it sorted out on Christmas Eve and were able to have a nice, quiet Christmas with our son, enjoyed good food and each other’s company. I hope all of you enjoyed the holidays as well. Here is a picture of this year’s handmade Christmas cards that I made in a last minute frenzy one weekend in November. I always purchase the fabrics right after Christmas, when the holiday fabrics go on sale, so I have a design and material ready for next year but of course I never find the time to actually make them before I absolutely have to. My Scan N Cut simplified the process a lot this year, it would have been almost impossible to cut out the shapes by hand.

Thank you to all of you who keep visiting and reading and commenting, have a wonderful happy and healthy New Year 2020!

Once again, I am joining the general frenzy that sets in right after Thanksgiving in the US by providing a Black Friday discount code. And once again, I have been really creative… (not). Enter the code BLACK2019 during checkout and receive a 20% discount on your purchase. The coupon code is valid until Dec 2, 2019 11.59 pm PST and works only on my website. Happy shopping!

Before going to Germany, I made another set of preemiequilts, using my tested and tried layouts. Simple patterns, not too many seams, only light quilting, those are the requirements of the German group that makes them and donates them to the hospitals. They are quick and easy to make, use up leftovers and are for a good cause. I am happy to take some with me whenever I go over to visit.

I am back from my trip to Germany. In fact I have been back for a week, but it took me a while to readjust to the time zone change and get organized. Writing blog posts is at the bottom of my to do list right now, so I will leave you with a few pictures from my trip today. It was very hot in Berlin pretty much the whole time, luckily I had taken my Yellowstone hat which made walking around in the sun a little easier.

Schloss Sanssouci, Potsdam

May is a busy month with lots of square dancing. Square (and round) dancing is the one thing I always make time for, no matter how busy I am with quilting. Last weekend we headed to Wenatchee in Washington for the Apple Blossom Weekend, and our route took us right through Leavenworth, Washington’s “Bavarian Village”. Before you ask, no, it is not very authentic, it is more a North American vision of Bavaria and very touristy, but it is still pretty and a nice place to visit, and the weather was gorgeous. We had an early supper sitting outside on a balcony and enjoyed the view. The one authentic place in town we found was the Bavarian Bakery, and we took one of their German whole grain breads home with us. A very nice weekend getaway!

I wasn’t even planning on buying backing fabric yet for the Tuxedo Cats but I happened to find the perfect fabric last week, so I snatched it up before it sold out. Maybe it isn’t 100% perfect since the cats are completely black but it is close enough for me with the mostly black and white (okay, silver…) design and I especially love the green eyes. It is probably a Halloween fabric, it is a Hoffman fabric line called “Full Moon”. Sorry, I can’t tell you where you can get it as I bought the last 5 yards that were in stock but there might be a few online stores that have some left.

Eigentlich hatte ich gar nicht vor, jetzt schon Rückseitenstoff für den Tuxedo Cats Quilt zu kaufen, aber dann bin ich über den perfekten Stoff gestolpert und habe zugegriffen, bevor er ausverkauft war. Vielleicht ist er nicht 100%ig perfekt, da die Katzen komplett schwarz sind, aber das schwarz-weiße (okay, silberne…) Design und besonders die grünen Augen gefallen mir richtig gut. Vermutlich ist es ein Halloween-Stoff, er stammt aus der Serie “Full Moon” von Hoffman. Eine Bezugsquelle kann ich leider nicht angeben, da ich die letzten 5 Yards gekauft habe, die am Lager waren. Aber vermutlich gibt es noch einige Online-Shops, die ihn im Sortiment haben.

My plan was to only take time off between Christmas and New Year’s Day. And then WordPress decided it was a good idea to launch a major update right before the holidays. My site hasn’t updated yet but I expect my hosting company to update within the next 24 hours and am bracing myself for trouble. The changes will mostly affect me as they are changing the post editor to a completely different version. But who knows how it might influence other parts of the website and what might not be working anymore after the update. I hope to fix potential bugs quickly, luckily my computer expert son is already home for the holidays. So I have decided to stop blogging until the new year and concentrate on making sure the website is in working order. Have a wonderful Christmas [or insert holiday that you celebrate here], and I will see you in 2019 for the first block of the brand new Tuxedo Cats BOM!

Eigentlich wollte ich ja nur zwischen Weihnachten und Silvester eine Blogpause einlegen, aber dann hatte WordPress die geniale Idee, ausgerechnet kurz vor den Feiertagen eine komplett neue Version herauszugeben. Auf meiner Seite läuft das Update noch nicht, ich lasse das immer über meine Hosting Firma automatisch machen, aber ich rechne in den nächsten 24 Stunden damit und bereite mich auf Probleme vor. Angekündigt war das schon länger, und es betrifft vor allem mich, da die Benutzeroberfläche für das Schreiben von Posts etc. völlig anders sein wird. Aber man weiß ja nie, wo nach einem Update alles der Wurm drin ist, und ich verfolge die Diskussionen schon länger, völlig problemlos scheint es nicht zu laufen. Daher werde ich mich auf Fehlersuche und -behebung konzentrieren, zum Glück ist mein Computerexperte schon vom College nach Hause gekommen. Bis zum nächsten Jahr verabschiede ich mich hiermit und wünsche allen frohe Weihnachten und einen guten Rutsch. Wir sehen uns dann im Januar 2019 zum Start des neuen BOMs “Tuxedo Cats”.

… or rampant consumerism weekend, as my favourite non-quilty blogger Mya Gosling of Good Tickle Brain calls it. (If you enjoy wacky humour applied to the works of William Shakespeare turned into stick-figure comics, go check her out, she is hilarious. But I am getting sidetracked…) This year’s coupon code is BLACK2018 (very creative, I know), and you will get 20% off during checkout. If you missed any Barnyard Bash patterns, now is the time to get them. The coupon code is valid until Nov 26, 2018 11.59 pm PST and works only on my website, not on Craftsy or Makerist or other places I might be selling my patterns. Happy shopping!

Und es ist wieder soweit… DAS Shopping-Wochenende des Jahres hat begonnen, und der Kaufrausch schlägt ungehemmt zu. Bei mir gibt es 20% Rabatt über den (sehr einfallsreichen) Coupon Code BLACK2018. Wer also z.B. beim Block of the Month etwas verpasst hat, kann jetzt zum Sonderpreis zuschlagen. Der Coupon ist gültig bis zum 26.11.2018 23.59 PST und funktioniert nur auf meiner Website und nicht auf Craftsy, Makerist etc. Viel Spaß beim Shoppen!

We had a great show, everything worked well, and it was a lot of fun to see all the awesome quilts. And I bought some raffle tickets, we had eight beautiful baskets and two handmade quilt racks, made and donated by two husbands of guild members. I really wanted to win one of them, and guess what… I was the lucky winner on Friday night! It is now sitting next to the fireplace, and I love the way it looks with the quilts on display. Other than that, I need a few days to regroup and sort things out. The show was a lot of work but well worth it. But I am happy that it is over now, and I have time to slow down a little and take a deep breath.

Wir hatten eine tolle Quilt Show, alles war prima organisiert und hat gut geklappt, und die Quilts waren super schön. Und ich habe ein paar Raffle Tickets gekauft. Wir hatten acht quiltige Geschenkkörbe, die verlost wurden, und zwei Quiltracks, hergestellt und gespendet von zwei Ehemännern von Gildemitgliedern. Ich wollte gern eins von diesen Racks gewinnen, und das Glück war mir hold, am Freitagabend konnte ich eins mit nach Hause nehmen! Jetzt steht es neben dem Kamin, und ich bin glücklich damit, wie schön die Quilts da jetzt zur Geltung kommen. Ansonsten brauche ich jetzt ein paar Tage, um zur Ruhe zu kommen und mich neu zu organisieren. Die Show war viel Arbeit, hat sich aber auf jeden Fall gelohnt. Aber trotzdem bin ich jetzt froh, dass sie vorbei ist und ich mal durchatmen kann.

We have been back for two weeks already, so I finally took the time today to look through the pictures of our trip to Vancouver Island in early August. It was hot and dry but not much smoke from the wildfires yet. Our first day in Victoria was the day of the Symphony Splash – an annual concert on a floating stage in the Inner Harbour. We had no idea this would be happening that weekend but grabbed our lawn chairs and joined the crowd in front of the Parliament Buildings. It was a wonderful experience, and I hope we will be able to go back next year. We spent two nights in Victoria and two in Nanaimo and the last night in Madeira Park on the Sunshine Coast before taking the ferry back to Horseshoe Bay. This was my first visit to the Island but definitely not the last – I really, really loved it!

The Fairmont Empress Victoria BC

Jetzt sind wir schon seit zwei Wochen wieder zurück von unserem Kurztrip nach Vancouver Island, und ich habe heute endlich mal die Photos durchgesehen. Es war heiß und trocken, selbst an der Küste waren es 35°C, aber Anfang August war der Rauch von den Waldbränden noch nicht so schlimm. An unserem ersten Tag in Victoria fand der Symphony Splash statt – ein jährliches Konzert auf einer schwimmenden Bühne im Hafen. Das war von unserer Seite nicht geplant, wir hatten gar keine Ahnung, was da los war, aber als wir es herausfanden, haben wir sofort die Campingstühle aus dem Auto geholt und uns zu den Massen um den Inner Harbour herum gesellt. Das Konzert mit Feuerwerk war richtig schön, und kurz vor Schluss wurde zu unserer Überraschung sogar die “Berliner Luft” gespielt. Da möchte ich im nächsten Jahr unbedingt wieder hin. Wir haben zwei Nächte in Victoria verbracht und zwei in Nanaimo und die letzte Nacht dann in Madeira Park an der Sunshine Coast, bevor wir mit der Fähre zurück nach Horseshoe Bay gefahren sind. Das war mein erster Besuch auf Vancouver Island, aber sicher nicht der letzte. Es hat mir dort richtig gut gefallen.

I have wanted a fabric cutter for years, and I finally bought one! I am mostly going to use it to cut appliqué pieces, and I wanted it to be able to handle my own designs, so I didn’t even consider the Accuquilt machines. Several of my German friends have a Brother Scan N Cut, and after some research that’s what I ordered as well. And boy, do I love it! I should have bought it a long time ago, especially since I am fond of intricate designs with tiny pieces. Here is an example of what I am working on right now, a square dance quilt. If you know me personally, then you are probably aware that if I am not quilting chances are I will be square dancing. The quilt will have four blocks with dancing couples (a full square), and it took the machine less than two minutes to cut out the dancers. It would have taken me forever to do it by hand, and it wouldn’t have looked half as nice. I am very happy with my new toy 🙂

Ich hatte schon seit Jahren zumindest im Hinterkopf den Wunsch, mir einen Plotter zuzulegen. Ich will vor allem Applikationen damit ausschneiden, und die Maschine soll auch meine eigenen Designs verarbeiten können, so dass Accuquilt Produkte schon mal nicht in Frage kamen. Unter meinen deutschen Quiltfreundinnen ist der Scan N Cut von Brother recht beliebt, und nach etwas Recherche habe ich mir dieses Teil nun auch bestellt. Und ich bin begeistert! Das hätte ich mir schon lange zulegen sollen, zumal ich ja komplizierte Applikationen mit kleinen Teilen liebe. Hier ist ein Beispiel, das ich gerade in Arbeit habe, ein Square Dance Quilt. Wer mich persönlich kennt, der weiß, dass ich, wenn ich nicht quilte, vermutlich beim Square Dance zu finden bin. Für den Quilt brauche ich vier dieser tanzenden Paare, und die Maschine hat die Silhouette in weniger als zwei Minuten detailgenau ausgeschnitten. Mit der Hand hätte das ewig gedauert und sicher auch nicht so schön ausgesehen. Ich bin sehr zufrieden mit meinem neuen Spielzeug 🙂