Elna SU 62C sewing machine - meet Ella.

~sigh... well I bought yet another Elna sewing machine.  To date I have owned an Elna Stella, green supermatic, Air Electronic TSP, Special and this is my second Elna SU 62C.  All vintage Elnas were manufactured in Switzerland, the SU 62C in the early 1970s.  Four of these machines were sold and the Air Electronic TSP was given away to my niece.  I'm plan to keep this Elna and really hope to bond with it.  I enjoy sewing with an Elna machine but have never liked the bobbin loading behind the presser foot.  I find threading the bobbin awkward.  Once threaded correctly all of these machines have sewn flawlessly. 

I'm her third owner, the first owner used it quite a bit.  The second one hardly at all.

Cosmetically, the machine is in very good condition.

I sewed some outdoor fabric to repair two deck chairs.  Ella purrs like a kitten when she sews and had no trouble at all sewing with outdoor thread.

 

 

The mechanics of the cabinet are pretty cool.

The lever is pushed to the right and the machine rests on the bar below it.

 It appears to be made entirely of wood, pre-particle board days.

This is the view under the cabinet.  Yes, I got on the floor to take this photo!  Not an easy feat.

This lever drops the platform and is spring loaded.

There she sits in sleep mode! 

Three good size drawers, that hold everything except the accessory case, which is too wide and tall to fit.

I just love all the goodies that come with buying a used vintage machine.

Accessory case.

A good selection of feet, including a darning foot.

Genuine Elna bobbins, little screw driver and cleaning brush.

Three manuals and a pair of pinking shears.

 Needles and a small bottle with a wee bit of oil.

 

About two dozen cams.

I haven't played with the cams yet, but there is one that makes little ducks, should be lots of fun.

Dear Readers,

What is your favourite sewing machine/s?  Are you loyal to a specific brand eg. Singer?

What do you like the best about your machine/s?  What do you like the least?

Happy stitching!

Baby snoopy quilt is finished.

Yippee! ~dancing around the room with glee.  I quilted it with designs from Sew Cal Gal's 2012 Free Motion Quilting project.

Trimmed off the excess backing and batting. Then made and attached the binding.

 

For binding, I follow Dara's method from Sew Snuggly quilts.

Of course, I've made a few changes to her tutorial.  I sew the binding on the backside first.

Rather than hand sewing the binding in place, I machine sew a three stitch zig-zag on the front side.

 

Next baby's name was embroidered on.

 

 My initials and the year.

Outside for a photo shoot.  It was very sunny, I did not use the cir-polarizing filter, so the colours of the quilt are wee bit overexposed.

 Ooops, the green ceramic pencil markings still need to be removed.

 

 

Now, I'm off to make a matching toy bag to pack the quilt in before mailing it Toronto.  Happy quilting all.

Baby Snoopy Quilt - Progress report

Monday afternoon was spent cutting.

Check out my new ironing board cover.  It is very smooth. Yesterday I was busy piecing and ironing.  I don't really enjoy ironing so it seems odd that quilting is a hobby I do purely for pleasure.

These four patches are 2" by 2" finished size.

On Tuesday afternoon, the centre blocks and inside slashing were finished.

Today the inside border and ribbons were added.

Little kids love to fiddle with tags, so I put lots of ribbons on the inside border.

 

 

The ribbons are randomly cut, spaced and pinned in place, then machine basted before adding the outside border.

The outside border seam that holds the ribbons was serged after sewing, followed with zig zag top stitching through the seam allowance. This is done to reinforce the seam so that no amount of pulling on the ribbons will open the seam.

 This quilt top is finished.

 

 

  

It is only 2:40 pm now, I probably have enough time left today to make the backing and put the quilt together.  Being retired is really working out swell. 

Happy stitching!