Introducing.....

My "new" Singer.

A 1950s Singer 301. 

I inhereted this machine from Mr. Chaos' Great-Grandma.  She had been sitting in my garage collecting dust until a friend redid the cabinet she came with.

When I got the cabinet back, I took the machine into the shop to be oiled and cleaned up a bit.  It was pretty funny when I picked her up, the guy at the sewing shop rattled on and on about how great the machine was, and that I was NEVER to sell it, "it has value".  I guess it will be running for my kids' kids.

Anyway, I'm starting to sew with her.  Learning the quirks of a "new" machine is alway fun. 

Finding a Home

We've spent the last month or so of weekends driving around the Willamette Valley checking out houses and properties.  Nothing.  Either the property is yucky or the house is falling apart. 

Someone mentioned that we might be interested in talking to Adair Homes, you find land and they build your house, pretty reasonably.  Mr. Chaos and I did our research online and went to talk to Kellie, a "Home Ownership Counselor" at Adair. 

Wow.  seems almost do-able.  We find land and do some sweat-equity, and they build a great house.  We're cautiously excited.  We picked through their blueprints and found one we like, "the 1920".  (all the plans have names that reflect the square footage of the house.)  Not positive it's "the one" but it's in first place right now.

We found a piece of property we like, about 30 minutes south of our current home.  Now, the next step is to have one of the Adair people evaluate the site and let us know if it will work for us.

Stay tuned!

Catherdral Windows, Step One

The goal of this step is to end up with twenty-one 12" squares of background fabric.

I fold the yardage selvage to selvage, and then fold again, so it fits nicely on the ironing board which doubles as a longer cutting table.  Then I roughly measure out 13(ish) inches, using my handy-dandy ruler.

Then I cut with scissors.

I repeat until I have 8 - 13" x WOF strips.  I only need 7, but I like to have an extra.

Now I square the strips up and cut into 12" squares.  Pretty basic.

I cut them width-wise first, getting three 12"x 13"(ish) squares from each strip.

Then I stack the three, turn and trim the other two sides.  Then I repeat for the rest of the strips.

Viola, a stack of 12" squares.