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Vintage machine: 1970s Kenmore

Recently I've done a lot of my sewing on this baby

She's a nice green tea colored Sears Kenmore model #158.15160.

I have a few vintage machines. They have different tasks and I love them all. This is my downstairs machine and its been the most available since my sewing space has been a disaster over the past year. It was supposed to go to my daughter but she was intimidated by it's speed and strength. This machine has been the one I turn to when I need to sew a quick repair and she ended up piecing and quilting my last quilt. She is fast and a bit jerky. I think the foot pedal just needs the contacts cleaned up, one day I'll get around to that.  According to the Sears Archive, she was either made from 1971-72 or 1977. Funny dating but I guess she was a very good model to come back for a short time. My husband bought her off of a guy who's mom sewed everything on it. I think she was a seamstress. It came with all these accessories.



even some old needles, that I won't use but look cool in a matching colored case. This picture didn't come out right, it's more tea than mint green.



My favorite everyday feature on this machine is how high the presser foot can be lifted. It's perfect for bulky seams and fabric and going over the seams in jeans.



My second favorite feature are the stitch discs which I just used within the past couple of months.


I used one to machine stitch the binding on my last quilt. It sewed through it like it was air. I really need to sew a stitch sampler so I have a quick reference.
 
It came with a buttonhole maker that I haven't used & is misplaced in my sewing room, so no picture. It's a big odd piece and don't know how to attach it but that's because I haven't researched it yet.

We had a cabinet left over from a Kenmore, another thrift store find. The machine didn't work in it, it became an art piece, but we used the table temporarily. She fit perfectly, unfortunately it doesn't allow the machine to go inside because something inside is broken but that's OK as I'm not very formal and love the look of vintage machines. As you can tell from the above pictures, the table could use some refinishing. I'm afraid it's not worth it because I think I'll just mess it up again.

My daughter ended up finding a nice old Singer for $10 at the thrift store that's just her speed. It just needed a little TLC and she loves it so everything worked out really good. I'm sewing my next few projects on this one because Spring cleaning my sewing room has to come after other areas or I'll never get to them!

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The quilt with two names

I've known about this quilt forever. I originally read about it on the Quilting Board way before I'd seen the Jelly Roll Race or the 1600 inch quilt. You can find the original post here: http://www.quiltingboard.com/tutorials-f10/super-fast-jelly-roll-quilt-t44258.html   I recommend you wade through it because there are a lot of nice examples. On page 7 is a picture tutorial and somewhere in there is a discussion of making different sizes and using different widths. She used to have a PDF printout for free but you could just print the first page.  Anyways, I used my JoAnn's, 20 strip jelly roll to try this out.  I wanted to also separate the strips by piecing squares in between them. I really like that look for this quilt so I chose a crazy scrap I had laying around and cut twenty 2 1/2 inch squares. The jelly roll had only ten different fabrics, 2 strips of each, so I pieced squares on one end of each strip. I should clarify, you need to piece strips of