Darcy and the UFOs

We don’t write about all of E’s animal rescue flights, but the presence of UFOs made this flight more interesting than some others.

In early December 2015, animal control officers in eastern North Carolina picked up a homeless, stray dog and her five tiny puppies. The dog was caring for the puppies as best she could without shelter or food, and she was also coping with a deep wound on her abdomen. Pam, an animal rescue volunteer, stepped in to give the dogs a foster home and she named the dog Darcy. Pam tended to Darcy’s wound, made sure all of the puppies stayed healthy, and gave them lots of toys and attention.

After six weeks, the dogs were ready to travel to their rescue group 400 miles away in New Jersey. Pam regularly works with Pilots ‘n Paws and she reached out to pilots who’d flown dogs for her before and asked if they could help. E volunteered to fly and so did a friend of his, John. Both E and John have flown hundreds of dogs for Pilots 'n Paws. 

On January 20, 2016, E flew to Roanoke Rapids, NC, where he picked up Darcy and the puppies and loaded them into his plane.

E flew to Westminster, MD, where he met John. They transferred the dogs to John’s plane and he flew them to their rescue group in New Jersey which will find permanent, loving homes for them.

This flight was unusual because both E and John are UFOs – United Flying Octogenarians. UFOs are pilots who flew a fixed or rotary wing, glider, sport or balloon aircraft as pilot in command on or after their 80th birthdays. I'm sure this isn’t the first time two UFO pilots have teamed up to make a Pilots ‘n Paws flight, but it is definitely not a common occurrence. 

If you want more information about Pilots ‘n Paws, you can find it here and here. If you want more information about the UFOs, you can find it here. 

Dresden Circle Flannel Quilt

This is the fourth quilt I've made from the box of flannel scraps someone gave me several months ago. The box contained some skinny triangles and I trimmed twenty of them and stitched them together into this Dresden circle. I pieced together enough of the pink (with tiny pink dots which you can maybe see in the next photo) to make a border and I used the last few bits of the off-white to make the binding, which I attached using my Singer 401.

I put some extra batting under the circle so it stands up about an inch from the face of the quilt, and I didn't quilt the Dresden pieces because I decided I liked the way it looks as it is. This quilt is 36 x 36 inches, which is about the same size as the previous three small flannel quilts I made from this same box of scraps. The box isn't quite empty, but it's getting close. It's been fun, and a little challenging, to sift through the pile of scraps and come up with ideas for combining them into a series of small quilts. 

Happy sewing, everyone!  

The Featherweight's New Clothes

This afternoon, I had a couple of spare hours and a pile of fleece scraps, and the Featherweight ended up with some snazzy new duds. There's a tiger striped sock which protects the bed, including the hinged piece.

There's also a gusseted bag which gives the machine some extra protection when it's in the case.

Happy sewing, everyone!  

Zippers and Drawstrings

I pulled some cotton pieces from my box of scraps and 

used them to make a few

zippered pouches and drawstring bags

Happy Sewing Everyone!

Mailbox v. Vandals

When we moved here in 1979, we took a look at the dented, lopsided, spray painted, uprooted mailboxes of our neighbors and decided to get a post office box in town instead of having a mailbox at the top of the driveway. This worked fine until the past couple of years when the MVA began addressing mail to our house instead of to our post office box. Because we didn’t have mail delivered at the house, the post office simply returned our mail to the MVA. Driver’s license renewals? Returned to the MVA. Registration renewals? Returned to the MVA. Ack! So, after 36 years, we bought a mailbox, painted our house number on it, set a post in the ground, mounted the box on an arm on the post and waited for the MVA to send us something.

The mailbox was up for not quite two months before the local vandals discovered it. Two weekends out of the last three, our mailbox was pulverized. The first time, it was dented and the little red flag was ripped off. We took the box down, pounded out the dents, riveted the flag back onto the box, and re-mounted it on the post. The second time, the little turds beat the living daylights out of it. In addition to being dented, the bottom of the box was torn from the top, the door wouldn’t close, the arm on the post was twisted and the post was leaning to one side. The photo above shows the mailbox after the second round of repairs. Believe me, it looked a heck of a lot worse before we worked on it.

We hated to remount the box, only to have it vandalized again. Internet research revealed all kinds of interesting ways to defeat mailbox vandals. Unfortunately, some of the ideas were super expensive. Others were a heck of a lot of work. Still others seemed likely to injure either the vandals or to pose a hazard if a motorist ran into the post. We eventually found one idea, though, which made a lot of sense and after the second time we beat our mailbox back into something resembling a mailbox, we put the idea into practice.

The underside of our box has two brackets on it. When we put the brackets back on the box after repairing it the second time, we added two long nails which poke down through the brackets. The distance between the nails is the same as two pre-drilled holes on the arm of the post.

We drilled two holes in a piece of wood and mounted it to the arm of the post so the holes line up with the two pre-drilled holes on the arm. We also mounted our newspaper box to this with cable ties.  

Then, we put a handle on top of the mail box. Now all we have to do is slip the two nails into the holes each morning to mount the box. Then each evening, we grab the box by the handle, pick it up, and bring it (and the mail) back to the house.

This is a tiny bit of extra work for us, but it’s no big deal. With any luck, the vandals will leave the post and the newspaper box alone. Fingers crossed.  

Singer 2404 reverse repair

Several years ago, I saw this machine listed for sale on eBay. When I asked the seller about packing it for shipment, she said all the right things, so I placed my bid. Unfortunately, my bid was the high bid. 

When the machine arrived, it was in a cardboard box without any packing material at all. None. Zero. Zip. Nada. Not a wadded up newspaper. Not a single packing peanut. Nothing. The machine was in its original case (which was one of the reasons I wanted it), but the box was too small for the case, and during shipment the handle on top of the case was crunched down into the top of the case, which broke the handle and cracked the top of the case. Because there was no packing material whatsoever, the bottom of the case had broken into a dozen pieces. The foot controller had rattled around, broken into several chunks, and spewed graphite disks everywhere. The top of the machine (the part with the spool holder on it) was cracked and bent. Considering the complete lack of packing material, I was surprised the machine wasn't in worse shape. 

When I contacted the seller, she seemed genuinely surprised when I told her about the machine's condition. After we talked about it, we agreed I would keep the damaged machine and she would refund my shipping costs plus half of my purchase price. I hadn't paid much for the machine, so this was a fair deal for both of us, I think. 

I junked the many, many pieces of plastic and found replacements for the top of the machine and the foot controller. I've never found another original case (still hoping, though!), but I did find a new case which fits the machine the same way the old one did. I also picked up a Singer 1862 at a rummage sale because it came with a box of cams which will fit this machine. 

In the photo above, you can see a big pink button on the right front side of the machine. When you push it in and hold it in, the machine is supposed to reverse. The machine ran like a champ -- going forward and in reverse -- until recently when it decided it didn't want to stitch in reverse. E took a look at it today and the solution wasn't obvious, but it was simple. 

The arrows in the next photo point to two set screws on the bottom of the machine.

The one on the top was super loose. The one on the bottom was a little bit loose. These set screws hold the bearings for the rods which control the feed dogs and because the rods were loose, the feed dogs weren't willing to reverse. Once E pushed the bearings over to the left to take the play out of the rods and tightened the two screws, the problem was solved. Now the 2404 sews a nice stitch going forward and in reverse. Yay! 

Singer 15-91

Well, folks, another one followed us home. In early June, we met a fellow who inherited a Singer 15-91 (this one was made in 1950) and wanted to get rid of it. The good news: The machine wasn't missing any parts and came with a box of accessories, the foot controller, the power cord, and the little green instruction booklet. The perhaps not so good news: For some reason, all the electrical wiring had been disconnected. Because there's always room for one more sewing machine, we loaded it in the back of the Spark and brought it home.

We had a lot of things going on this summer and didn't have a chance to take a good look at the machine right away. When we did, we found it was a tad dirty, which was no surprise. Take a good look at the feed dogs. Not the worst we've seen, but still pretty icky.

We cleaned the machine, oiled and greased it, polished the chrome parts, and replaced the light bulb with a cooler, brighter LED bulb. E used gold acrylic paint on the stitch length regulator so we can see the numbers. (See how to do this at http://vssmb.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-restore-your-stitch-length.html). Before he did this, the numbers weren't visible at all.

He took off the motor, inspected it thoroughly, cleaned a few things, and replaced the wicks. We started thinking about the reasons someone would disconnect all of the wiring from a machine and decided the number one reason would be to keep the house from burning down, so we replaced the power and pedal cords. As we worked on the machine, we ran it through its paces using the hand wheel (no power) many, many times. When we finally plugged it in and gave a cautious, light press on the foot controller, the machine didn’t smoke or burst into flames. In fact, it ran steadily and smoothly. Yay!

I had to read the instruction manual to figure out how to thread it on top – In my defense, it’s a bit odd. Then, I sent a bunch of scraps through and it made a nice, even stitch. Its new home is a cabinet (with a knee controller) we found at a thrift shop and refinished a while ago. Now all I have to do is decide what to sew for its first project as a new-to-me machine. Happy Sewing Everyone!