Work, work and the other work.

Where have I been? The motorcycle resort I work at is seasonal and when it opens April 1st it's time to train the work campers. The office manager, the young lady that has been there a lot longer, and I, have been working lots of hours to get everyone trained up. It seems we have two good recruits. After this week new kids have a couple of solo shifts and then we can revert to our regular schedule. Whatever that may be. I have also been working on a BIG project in the shop.

I finally managed to get my table cleared off!

Unwrapped about 15 yards of Sunbrella Plus.

 Doubled it, sewed it together on one side, flipped it open and top stitched it,

with my baby Zena, the barbarian warrior princess. 

Just as I was ready to proceed, my husband showed up with........

A Singer 128-23 It's 3/4 size in a beautiful wooden case. 

My husband sat down and without any interference from me threaded it up and it sewed like a dream. Then he gave it a good once over with oil can and let me take it for a whirl. Imagine my surprise when I was looking at the accessories and found long skinny bobbins! It's a vibrating shuttle!

I got so excited just talking about it, I lost my bag of carrots I was munching and had to regroup. Ah. there it is, I ate all of them and the bag is empty and hard to see it with all the junk on my desk.

The next machine is an Elgin. It was originally made by the Elgin Watch and Bicycle Company but this one is probably post WW2 because there is a made in Japan sticker on the end. This poor baby was a mess. We blew a whole morning tearing it apart to find out what the problem was. 

That big round silver thingey that the cams sit on to produce the decorative stitches was frozen solid. My DH Earl almost completely disassembled all of that stuff you see there into individual parts. Then he hit them with PB Blaster, scrubbed some of it with wire brushes, wiped everything down and put it back together, then oiled it.  It only took three tries before we figured out where everything meshed back together and all the springs hooked up. Then we went to work on the underneath part, cleaning and oiling, what a mess! I think this machine was in a home with one or a few heavy smokers. Even the outside was covered with dark brown tarry looking stuff. I washed the outside with car wash and waxed it with McGuires. Ta-Da! It sews! I have some upper tension issues and I need to take the whole tension assembly apart and clean it. It is probably gummed up too. I had to put that aside for now and get back to WORK! You know work in the shop, not the work at Ironhorse where they pay me to show up and play with the customers.

The monster on the table is a 10' by 10' bimini top for a monster pontoon boat. As of today I have it finished and ready to put back on the frame and tomorrow I will take it back to the marina and install it on the boat. I'll post some photos. 

Have a wonderful day. It's bright and sunny here with a pretty stiff wind. I worked outside in the garden a bit this morning so now I need to eat some lunch and get ready for work, you know, work, work where they actually pay me, Ironhorse Motorcycle Lodge. That work, not my work here in the shop. 

Sue