July 31, 2014

Sewing with a Singer 66

I've been on a serious vintage kick, and it's NOT just sewing retro clothes!

Okay, so it IS sewing retro clothes…but on a vintage 1925 sewing machine!  Say hello to my gorgeous Singer 66!  It has a treadle, does NOT plug into the wall, and sews like a beast.

 

In college, we had an old metal machine that was fantastic to sew on while angry.  You felt like you were really accomplishing something, with all the clanking noises it made!  This machine is even better.  Each stitch says "KlUnka-klUnka," and the treadle shakes back and forth.  (Haven't had any complaints from the downstairs neighbor yet…)  Now, I know sewing machines aren't supposed to sound like that, but it's so satisfying!

It has some beautiful details that you would never see on a modern machine.  The gold decals, the ornate silver covering below…it all makes you feel as if you are sewing on something that was truly made with love.  

The Singer 66 was the very first sewing machine put into mass production, and was made for nearly 50 years!  It truly is an incredible machine.  Though it is very basic compared to today's models, it has a bobbin winder, adjustable stitch lengths, and will work during the zombie apocalypse!  


Above, the bobbin winder.  Below, a video showing how the bobbin winder works.  Listen to that great sound!!


I knew for my first project, I had to make something that was vintage.  I spent hours searching through 20s and 30s patterns for a dress or shirt I liked.  Eventually I found a Mrs. Depew pattern I liked, but was too impatient to start sewing to figure out the French enlargement process.  So, I pulled out an old favorite: Simplicity 3688.  

I made the pants once before from a cotton, and was happy with just about everything except for the height of the waist.  I know it is the style of the '40s, but I cannot do the under-the-boob waist-line.  I took about 3 inches off the waist, and it still is pretty high.  


Last time, I noticed how incredibly wide the legs were, but I decided to keep them wide for this pair.  They are really comfortable, but not as dressy as they could be.  Next time (because there will surely be a next time), I will have to make them a little narrower.  


From the above picture, you can see on the left the snap placket peeking out.  I've become addicted to snaps.  Zippers are a pain!


The heart-shaped pocket I put on the front.  



Excited to see what sewing is to come with my new sewing machine!!

July 22, 2014

Living Toward…Part One

Yesterday, an important anniversary nearly passed by unnoticed by me.  It was July 21, 2014, seven years to the day from the release of the seventh and final Harry Potter book.

Now, it may seem silly that a grown woman wistfully remember dressing up in robes with a lion hat perched on her head, real-live radishes hooked on her earrings, and a cork necklace around her neck, waiting impatiently for a brick of a book to be released, and I will not blame you if you laugh at that idea.  But, for that young woman, that day - July 21, 2007 - was one she had dreamed of and lived toward for many, many years.

It is that idea of living toward that intrigues me today.  When I think back to that young woman, waiting with her friends in her costume for a book to be released, I realize how happy she was to be living toward the moment that book would be placed in her hands.  So much excitement had led up to this moment: hours spent discussing and debating what had happened in prior books, and what could possibly happen in this one; even more hours reading and rereading each page of each book, reliving the stories as if for the first time.  All of those hours, days, years, had been spent living toward the release of this seventh and final book, when all would be revealed and the story would be concluded.


When she received that book, was the excitement over?  No…but she began living toward something new…the next chapter, and the next, then the end of the book, then the conversations that would come.  Some new thing to live toward appeared, and she followed along the path toward those new things.  And other things, not related to Harry Potter, certainly followed.  College graduation, acceptance into graduate school, attending graduate school, marriage…the list goes on.

In our lives, we are accustomed to living toward things.  Our next birthday, the conclusion of a school project, prom, graduation, marriage.  One thing follows when another is concluded, and we are rarely left with nothing to look forward to.  

It is the living toward that is exciting, isn't it?  When I looking forward to the final Harry Potter book, those moments of living toward were (dare I say it?) more exciting than the actual living of it.  It was more thrilling to imagine what might be in the book, than to read what was in the book.  But the danger of it is that we might become too enthralled in the imagining that when that thing we have been living toward arrives and passes…we do not know what to do next.  

My senior year of high school, I spent weeks on a major project for my literature class.  It was a project and presentation I had looked forward to doing since my sophomore year.  My every thought was about this project - what work needed to be completed, what work had been completed and if it needed to be edited, how I would present it, what I would wear when I presented it.  My whole existence became centered around living toward this project.  When the presentation concluded, suddenly I had nothing.  I had forgotten about prom, forgotten about graduation and college…I had forgotten that I needed to live toward something else next.  

So what happens when that thing we have been living toward disappears?  If the seventh Harry Potter book had been canceled, never to be released, what would I (and so many others) have done with all the anticipation that had been building?  If the project I had prepared for suddenly had been canceled due to unforeseen circumstances, what would I have done with all of that preparation?  

I've recently been struggling with this problem.  Following marriage and graduation from divinity school, I have been living toward having a family.  It has become my all-focused goal.  After all, it is what we are supposed to do, right?  Graduate, find a job, get married, start a family.  But when miscarriage followed miscarriage, and the expected ease of having a child proved unrealistic, I found myself with nothing to live toward.  

Saying "nothing" is perhaps an overstatement.  I have everyday goals and happinesses.  I certainly live toward each evening when my husband came home, toward ordination into Christian ministry, toward many other things….but that central thing that I was living toward had seemingly vanished.  How do you move forward when the rug has been completely swept from underneath you?  How do you keep standing, keep living?  How do you seek out that next truly meaningful thing to live toward?  

It has been, and continues to be, a complete life adjustment.  There are only so many days one can set aside to crying in bed and waiting for life to cooperate with your expectations.  And so, lately I have been seeking out new things to live toward.  They've been small, but have managed to fill that space in my life.  Cataloguing our entire 500+ book library.  Learning how to fix and sew on a 1920s-era treadle sewing machine.  Rediscovering the utter joy of reading for pleasure.  Finding a job.

I'm not entirely sure what I am living toward these days.  Perhaps it is finding those simple life pleasures that make you smile.  Or perhaps it is seeking out something new to live toward.  Living toward something to live toward.