The Singer Featherweight Sewing Machine

I just moved, and one of the things that I had to do was go through my fabric collection. This is something I haven't done in quite some time. I knew that it would be bad. My first hint was the summer that I decided to use up all my quilt blocks that I had made that did not end up in the final quilt. Things that just didn't work for a particular project, but I couldn't bear to just throw away, so instead I threw them in a box. Kind of like an intermediate step. Well the summer between the birth of my 3rd and 4th sons I got that box out and made baby quilts with these blocks until I ran out of them. I ended up with 70 baby quilts. That was a wonderful thing. The bad news? I only used up 2 boxes of fabric in the process. And I had about 30 boxes all told. That was the summer I stopped going to fabric stores. It was abundantly clear that I already had more fabric than I was going to be able to use in this lifetime.

I haven't quilted regularly over the past decade. There was only one thing my husband asked me to do as a result of this recent move and our having assessed all our worldly possessions. He asked me to quilt again. I have already planned my quilting space. It is in the room of my one remaining child at home's room. Once he moves out, I rearrange the room and make an area that I can quilt in. But getting back on the quilting horse is more complicated than that--one ingredient is taking classes again, and getting creative ideas and momentum back. A week ago, I was directed to a friend of mine's blog (http://pearlthesquirrel.blogspot.com/). It is a wonderful blog, full of great thoughts, ideas, and creativity. The blog post that I read when I first read it was about her new Singer Featherweight sewing machine, and I felt a real pang of jealousy. The Featherweight is a real thing of beauty. It was made by Singer from 1933 to 1964, and weighs in at 11 pounds. I have seen quite a few of them at quilting classes that I have taken over the years, and the appeal is very clear. When machine piecing, the fact that it only goes forwards and backwards is not a liability, and the weight of the machine makes it easy to transport. My Bernina requires some serious upper body strength to haul around, and the older I get, the less appealing that is. So I got on Ebay, found one that looked just right which had a sale expiring in an hour, so I bid on it, and before you know it, I had myself a Featherweight of my very own. It is just adorable, sews like a dream, and makes me feel like I am committed to getting back to quilting now that I have the perfect portable machine.