New old machine

Another new old machine has found its way to my house.

This is from a friend who bought it with all good intentions, and never used it.  I looked up the serial number;  this is a Singer 99K, manufactured at the Kilbowie factory in Clydebank, Scotland in 1918. It was very little used, if at all.

The decals show very little, if any, wear.  The inside of the machine - under the slide plate and underneath the machine - shows no lint or accumulated oil.  It came with a couple of attachments, two small screwdrivers, a few corroded needles (although the one in the machine looks fine) and a couple of bobbins (Class 66).  The bobbins had thread on them, and one of them may have been used, because the thread was almost gone.  It is a hand crank, and shows no sign of having had a motor attached, but the hand crank, strangely enough, is a reproduction model.  Perhaps something happened to damage the original hand crank and that was replaced.  Odd, nevertheless.

I oiled it (with my favorite, Super Lube), wound a bobbin, threaded it up, and tried to get it sewing.  It took quite a few adjustments.  The stitch length was set to the shortest length (or nearly so), the tension was set far too tight, and the back of the fabric was very, very loopy.  I adjusted and played with it for about 20 minutes and finally got a nice stitch length and a good stitch.  Here you can see both sides of the stitched fabric as well as the very loopy tension problems I started with.

I've managed to do quite a bit of knitting lately as well.  I've been working on a new cuddle blanket for the grandchild.  I bought 3 skeins of Bernat Blanket, but it's already big enough; I may end up using only two.  I was only able to get two in the main color (on the bottom of the blanket) and bought another to do a center stripe.  The color in this picture is WAY off.  The blanket colors are blue, brown, dark blue, and the sheet in the background is navy.  Regardless, I may end this at two skeins.  This yarn is so bulky I find it difficult to knit.  On the other hand, making it with all 3 skeins would certainly give it a more useful life - the boy is nowhere near done growing!  There is no pattern for this; just straight garter stitch.

This is my other recent project.  A good friend recently announced she was pregnant, and I decided to knit a baby blanket.  This pattern is ABC Baby Blanket, free from the KnitPicks website.

I'm almost a third of the way through this one.  I spent quite a bit of time after starting this, browsing through all the free baby blanket patterns on Ravelry.  There are some beautiful ones, and a whole lot of free ones.  If my ambition holds out, I may start Levi's Baby Blanket next.  That's another free pattern, and one of the prettiest ones I've seen yet.

I really need to get back to the Perimetera shawl, too.  Too much inspiration, too little time!