Dusty!

Check out the dust on that!

I've had this sewing machine for four years and this is the first time I've cleaned it - shameful isn't it?!
When I got back after new year I started sewing the baby blanket and immediately realised something was wrong by the strange noise my machine was making.  Something made me think that the fact I'd never cleaned it might be to blame so out came the sewing machine oil (ordered from Jaycotts ages ago) and off came the stitch plate (I just had to look that up in my sewing machine manual).  I don't know why I was so shocked by the amount of lint that had collected seeing as I'd never cleaned it but it did make me feel very sad for having made my machine work so hard in such poor conditions! Then I took out the bobbin case and the hook it connects to, gave them a good clean, cleaned inside with a cotton bud and then oiled the hook race (another new term!) and put it all back together again. It really felt like I'd done a good deed for my sewing machine, and for me of course.  I read somewhere last night that you should clean the bobbin case after every thread change but I don't think I'd remember this often. What does everyone else do? How often do you clean your machine? Is anyone as bad as my once in four years?!

Needles

After reading Sarai's post on developing good sewing habits, and reading about needles in the Colette Sewing Handbook I thought it was about time to change my needle and think about which one I should be using for which fabric.  I opened up the messy box containing all my needles, lots of ribbon and thread, and tailor's chalk - yes it's very messy! - and found a huge selection of needles. I've now thrown away the one in the machine that had been there for, well I don't know how long but I've never changed it, and I've put in one for the light cotton fabric you can see in the background of the photo. This fabric is in the process of becoming a pair of PJ shorts - the legs are sewn up, an it's a rainy day today so I'm hoping I'll get them finished today.

 
When I was deciding what, out of my mum's room-full of sewing, embroidery and other art supplies I should keep, it was hard to know what I might use in the future.  There were lots of things I had sentimental attachments to that I couldn't get rid of, but as a non-sewer I found it hard to know what would be most useful.  In the end I gave most of the craft supplies to friends of hers and of mine, people that I knew would get lots of use out of them.  I kept the sewing machine, all the machine threads, needles, scissors and a selection of fabric as I just couldn't keep it all.  It's lovely as I still get surprises when I go through boxes - for example just after taking the photo above I found another little needle box containing 3 twin needles!  Another discovery this week is that my sewing machine has a light bulb! I can't find the little gadget that my instruction book says should be there to remove the bulb and put in a new one - maybe it was one of the things I got rid of as I didn't know what it was! It's going to come in really useful in the winter though to be able to add some extra light to my wee sewing table.

My sewing machine

This is a photo of my lovely Bernina sewing machine. I have a great sentimental attachment to this sewing machine as it belonged to my mum, Christine Mackenzie. My mum was a wonderful artist, in addition to being the best mum I could ever have wished for, and most of her art work, particularly after me and my brother were born, was embroidery and textile based. The noise of a sewing machine going takes me back to my childhood! When my mum passed away I was clearing out her house and just could not bear to part with her sewing machine. I told myself I would make use of it. It has taken me over two and a half years, two house moves and one city move, to finally get round to using it!

I am hoping that this blog will work for me as a means of spurring me on in my sewing projects and keeping me enthusiastic when things get hard. I'm also hoping, of course, that it will be of interest to others, and that others might get some inspiration from my attempts at sewing in the same way that I've been getting so much inspiration from other sewing/craft blogs and style blogs I've been reading recently.  I'll also post things that have inspired me and other adventures from my new life in London.  Me and my husband moved down in September, having only got married earlier that year, in March - so a busy year last year!  When I moved down I spent the first 6 months commuting to another town, Winchester, so although I was living in London I wasn't spending a whole lot of time here mid-week.  I now have a job in London (which you can read more about here on my other blog) and with the Spring time here in full glory I am fully enjoying my life in a new home town - ok, city, but town fitted in better with the title of my blog!