And Sew to travel

Our recent overseas trip was just over 6 weeks in duration. I didn't have time to organise myself a hand sewing project to travel with. The time leading up to our departure was taken up with sewing items and getting organised for my stall at Comic Con which was immediately after our return. I'd posted a status on my FB page stating the number of projects I had completed and was promptly bombarded with requests to see the items. I was delighted to oblige although it necessitated the photographing of all the items and loading them up on facebook. That was followed by a flurry of orders from my friends (and their friends) for various things which I then had to package up and send off all over the country.

That's a long story to say..... no hand projects. I was content though. I had a project to do on my computer - (well my husband's computer since I didn't take mine) - sorting and labelling a bunch of photos that I had scanned from my mother's negatives. That would entertain me sufficiently I felt on the long flights we were undertaking. 

So I had resigned myself to 7 weeks of not sewing at all. 

However - that was not QUITE the way it turned out. Our first stopover on our trip was with our Japanese host son Sho and his wife Yuri (and our beautiful host granddaughter Suzu). 

In the corner of their living room I saw a treadle sewing machine. 

Yuri's treadle machine. It was a Janome. I have never seen a treadle Janome before. Usually the machine was  kept packed away because of their 2 cats whom they felt might damage it.

Yuri had bought it second hand because it was such a beautiful piece of furniture. She had sewn a couple of things but during our stay asked me to help her sew something for Suzu. A dress perhaps she suggested. Now I am not much of a garment sewer and wasn't sure that we would be able to manage it in the time we had available but was game to have a go. However Yuri saw the photos of bandana bibs that I had made for stalls and we decided to have a go at those. 

I love those bandana bibs. They are simple and affective and quick to sew. In about half and hour we managed to print the pattern, cut out the fabric and sew them up. 

Yuri did the machine sewing and the ironing and I did the hand stitching - sewing on the press studs and sewing closed the opening left to reverse the bibs. 

It was perfect and so much fun to sew with her. The memory still makes my heart sing.

And of course the model was extra beautiful!

A few weeks later we were in Norway, visiting the home of our host son J and his brand new wife (we had attended the wedding just days before) M had a sewing machine but it wasn't sewing properly. She had hand sewn her wedding gift (called a Morning Gift in Norway) for J as her machine wasn't working. 

J is wearing the apron that M had hand sewn for him as a Morning Gift.

 Fixit Guy had a look at the machine.

 It was all siezed up. A trip into the city to buy machine oil and he had it running again. I then had to take over. It wasn't sewing properly but after I found that the machine needle was in backwards all was good. 

It had gotten too late to do any sewing by the time we had the machine operating properly but since our return home I have been sent a photo of M using the machine and the message that it is working beautifully.