Mini TOGA and The Pizza Cutter of Death

So.  In early August Linda called me to tell me that she and Missie had decided to meet up at my house.

(pause for laughter.  Linda is a Very Good Friend and I took it in the humorous spirit it was offered.)

Linda lives 2 hours south of me and Missie lives 2 hours north so it made perfect sense.  And I didn't make it to TOGA* this year because I was too busy whooping it up in Newfoundland on THE BEST TRIP OF MY LIFE.  Maybe I'll get around to showing you my vacation photos one of these days.  There are thousands of them.  You want to see them, right?  You want to see ALL of them, don't you?
No?  Wait, why are you running off like that?.....

*TOGA, Treadle On Gathering and Academy, the NC one held in Monroe NC in early June each year.

The weekend before the planned mini TOGA my grand-niece Carla was in town with her grandparents.  I knew that Linda was bringing her daughters and so I begged to be allowed to have Carla for the week.  There were big demands on her time that week!  Between helping babysit a 2 year old one day and going to the beach with her aunt and cousin another day she was kept quite busy.  But I had her for three of those day and one was with Linda and her daughters.

Carla and I prepared a craft activity in advance.  I introduced her to my studio and gave her the safety rules.  The most important one is:  Do not touch The Pizza Cutter of Death.

You may know it by its official name:  rotary cutter.  But Pizza Cutter of Death is the best name if you have kids in your studio, as I often do.  And the only kids who ever make it down there are kids I can trust not to be stupid or rambunctious.

I also tasked Carla with watching me to make sure that I closed the Pizza Cutter of Death EVERY SINGLE TIME I laid it back down on the table.  Good habits are your friends.  She caught me putting it down open only once.  Kids love it when adults mess up.  I didn't do it on purpose either, I genuinely messed up.

We prepared 12 inch squares of muslin for flower pounding by cutting the squares and then prepping the fabric with Bubble Jet Set then letting them dry.  The fresh flowers were from Walmart because nothing in my yard was blooming at the time.  The girls taped flat, or flattened portions, of the flowers to the fabric with masking tape and them turned them over and pounded them with hammers til the flowers disintegrated and the pigments bled through to the fabric.  I put out all of my hammers from tiny tack hammers to the big boys to the rubber mallets for them to experiment with.  It was loud.  They had fun.

The pictures showing all this fun that SHOULD be in this post aren't.  Because while the little girls were whacking things with hammers, the adult girls were upstairs looking at my antique treadles and hand cranks.  And nobody was taking pictures until they showed us their results.

And here's an artistic vision of my 1874 Wilson treadle.  No relation to Wheeler & Wilson.

The mini TOGA began with the arrival of Linda and her girls Tuesday night, continued Wednesday with arrival of Carla, Missie, and Barbara (sewing friend only 20 minutes from me), and finished up Thursday with only Missie and me.  Thursday night Carla got back from the beach and she and I spent Friday in the studio sewing.  We made a pillow from the embroidery that she worked on throughout the week.  And it is a present for her little sister!

Linda brought over a serger I gave her last year after I bought The Love Of My Life, a BabyLock Evolution serger.  More about that in a future post.  We changed the blade on the Simplicity serger that I had bought in the 1990s.  I used it A LOT and it was a great machine (but the Evolution has air threading and I will never serge again without it).  And I showed Linda the basics of serging and unloaded a bunch of fabrics on her from my stash.

All knit and she didn't take all of them.  I really needed to downsize and I have moved towards fabrics with 2 way stretch.  These are all one way.  All bought at thrift stores for no more than $1/yard.

Barbara also came over and while Linda and I were serging, she and Missie were tucking.

Since I missed out on that Missie trained me on the tuck marker the next day.

We began by planning to do a tutorial but I quickly chickened out.  Too lazy this time.

And we played with toys too of course.  While I was looking at this attachment through my lighted magnifier I noticed Missie in the background.  So, more artistic photos for you.  You're welcome.

And finally, here is a rare, (probably) never-before-seen photo of my workroom, the room where all the tools live.  And the sewing machines that are either waiting to be repaired, or repaired ones waiting to find new owners.

What are you up to now?  I am doing some Christmas sewing but obviously I can't show you any of that yet!

Happy Holidays!