I'm back! AND Make Your Own Cloth Lined Apple Baskets!

Long time no see!

I'm sorry for being quiet for so long, but lots of life changes have been happening. I have moved houses! Yay!

I'm now in a great, happy place that I absolutely adore out in the country. You'll never catch me living in a subdivision again, not if I can avoid it!

Anyway! With everything just about settled down and the house fairly clean, it's time to get ready for my son's birthday party. This weekend. Yikes!

The decorations are bought, the food is(mostly) gathered, and I'm working on the finishing touches.

If all goes as planned, we're going to have LOTS of water items to play with! A large beach ball that squirts water, a slip n' slide, cloth water bombs to throw at people, and lots and lots and LOTS of water balloons!

But, what am I going to put that many water balloons in?

I'll let you in on a little secret. I LOVE estate sales! Sometimes it's just a bunch of junk but sometimes you can get some really neat stuff for pennies on the dollar.

My find this time? Apple picking baskets! Three large and one smaller one for a grand total of $3.

My grand idea was to line them with some cheap cloth so the rough edges are covered, and use them for water balloon storage. So far, so good!

Anyway, these guys came out super cute, and I'm here to show you how to do it yourself!

Materials! For this project you'll need some sort of basket, a drape-y fabric, scissors, and something to fasten the fabric to the baskets. I used some hemp string I had in my craft box!

This is pretty easy. Step one, drape the fabric over the top of the basket.

Press down the middle.

Then press in the edges and pull the fabric through the handles, if you have any!

Cut off the excess. Not too much, or you won't have enough fabric to tuck under!

Then, take your twine/string/rope/your wrapping thing of choice and, well, wrap it around the top of the basket. I tied it in a double knotted slip knot. This secures the string well, but allows for a little give while I'm tucking the fabric under and allows me to tighten everything back up at the end.

I tied this in a little bow because I was feeling silly, and some people might like how this looks and just end here, and that's fine!

Next, you're going to want to start tucking. I start just to the right of my knot. You pull the fabric out from under the twine and fold it up toward the basket, covering the twine and tucking it under.

Do this the whole way around, then tighten your knot as much as you are able! Then knot it one more time to lock it in place.

And vola, you're done!

These were super easy to make, and super cheap. As I said before, the baskets themselves were only $3 for all of them. On top of that, the fabric was only $3.37 at a local big-box store. I already had the scissors and twine, so for a whopping $6.37, I have some great containers for my water balloons!

Tomorrow I'll try to keep up on documenting making my son's Spider-Man cake.

Until next time, take care and have fun!

Shipping a Sewing Machine

This is how I pack sewing machines to ship!

There are a few different ways, and many different opinions, on the correct way to ship a sewing machine so it gets to its destination in one piece.

I use a method of trash bag 'balloons', blankets, and foam insulation sheets. I have never, to this point, had a machine head arrived damaged to its destination, knock on wood!

Anyway! Here are a few things you'll need. A box! Measure your machine to make sure you get the right size. You want a good bit of space for padding around the top, bottom, and sides.

Please excuse the messy living room!

Next, you'll need some of this stuff! I use about one and a half packages per machine.

You'll also need something to cut it with.

Careful: Sharp!

And I like using a blanket to help pad and protect the machine itself.

Salvation Army special.

Not pictured are two normal trash bags, and a big, black contractor trash bag.

First off, you're going to want to start cutting the base. Using the box as a guide, cut however much you'll need across. Slide it in to make sure it fits, trim off any excess, and then use that piece as a template for your next pieces.

Continue measuring and cutting until you get the cuts you need to jigsaw it into the bottom of the box proper. It took three pieces for me to get it completely covered.

For this machine and box size, I was able to fit two layers on the bottom of the box. Go ahead and use these pieces to cut two more full layers! These will be used on the top after we're done filling the machine in.


Now, figure out how you're going to situate your machine inside the box. I made a bit of a mistake with my box size and had to put the machine diagonally, but it worked out decently still in the end.

Take your blanket and fold it long ways, and then wrap it around the machine so it will protect the front, sides, and top parts. Be careful you don't wrap it too tightly! You don't want to risk harming the machine.

Now you're going to do a step that I forgot to do until later.

During shipment, the machine can be exposed to many things. Rain, chemicals, cleaning agents, God knows what. The best way to protect the paint and decals on the machine is to wrap it in a thick plastic bag and make sure it's taped down well. Also, the excess bag that's left can be wrapped over the top of the machine, giving it a bit more protection.

After you've done this, once again use your box to measure and see how to cut your sheets down to fit inside around the machine!

Two sides done! I was lucky enough to have a Styrofoam block from a bookshelf I had bought earlier in the week.

Two more sides done! It's a tight fit, about as snug as I was able to get it. The corners of the bed are digging into the first top and bottom sheet pieces, but it's not digging in enough that I'm worried it will break through, and the sheets are not pressing up against anything delicate.

Now, look for gaps. I have one in the lower right hand corner, and with all the cutting I've been doing I have some scrap pieces. Some of them need to be trimmed down, but, as you see in some of the pictures below, I was able to secure the machine better after filling it in.

Now it's time to fill in the gaps in the sides. When I first started doing this, I did it the old fashioned way. Putting the trash bag to my mouth and blowing it up, then shoving it down into the gaps and slowly letting air out until I could get it in there. Now? An exercise ball that I bought and never use(oops) came with this handy pump thing! So the bag is pumped up.

 Then you'll want to twist it shut.

I tape it three times. Once around the tight twist, a second time to tape the twist down to the bag, and a third time in the middle of the 'flower', all in my attempt to not let any of the air out.

If you shake your box at this point, you should see very, very little, if any, wiggle in your machine. If you see any wiggling in there, figure out where you need to add more foam sheet pieces to stabilize it better. The less the machine moves, the less likely it is to get damaged during transport! And trust me, no matter who you ship these through, they ARE going to get banged around. A lot.

After filling and taping up my trash bag balloons, I decided there was still too much room at the top of the machine. If some bozo decided not to follow the 'this side up' on the box, it could still easily shift and damage itself. So, I added two layers of foam, right in the middle there.

And, after some careful cutting, was able to make a top for this section!

I was only able to add one of the pre-made box layers from earlier here, but I am still confident that this machine has enough padding around it to make it through its shipping adventure.

Now it's time to tape it up! I close the first two flaps and tape it down twice.

And then close the other flaps and tape them three times in each direction.

And she's ready to ship!

Singer Model 500a Tune-Up

Oh dear, it's happened again! I'm just going around, minding my own business, and one of these little beauties ended up in my car.

That sounds creepy if you don't know I'm talking about a sewing machine...

Anyway, I brought this girl home and got her cleaned up!

It started with the usual process of taking her top off(oolala!) and seeing what I had to deal with on the inside. I had taken a quick peek at the thrift shop where I snagged it, and didn't see anything too distressing at the time.

Beautiful. All metal, fairly clean. Everything was dry as a bone and in desperate need of lube and oil, but that's well within my capabilities!

Next, I double checked the manual that came with it on the proper lubrication spots.

Pretty straight forward! The rule of thumb with these older machines is lube for every gear, and oil anywhere metal touches metal. 

First things first, though. I wanted to get the dust and grime off.

Ew! This was the worst of it for the top. That bobbin winder tire is going to have to be replaced. The rubber is dry rotted, and I'd bet most of the dust around the gear area there is from it coming off the bobbin winder.

I like using cotton rounds to take off the most obvious of the dust and lint.

And then pipe cleaners help scrub off the worst of the offending mess!

This is what you want to look for when it comes to using lubrication on your machine. You do NOT want to use oil on this gear especially(I learned that the hard way, and now have to run a motor until the oil I got on it by accident is finished smoking off).

I like to apply generously as I turn the hand wheel, making sure both gears get proper coverage.

Next, I go to the second lubrication spot the manual pointed out to me.

This one is a little tricky to get to, but not impossible! It didn't seem to have any dried grease on it like the others did, so it didn't require much cleaning.

Now I gave the machine a good once over, and what did I find hiding? Another gear! And this one was kind of disgusting.

You can almost see it in that pic. It's the thing smack dab in the middle, the thing with all the crud on it.

I attacked it with a metal awe(the sharp point is great for scraping stubborn gunk off) and a pipe cleaner, and soon got it looking like an actual gear again!

This is the best picture I could get of it for the after. It's hiding there behind the plate with the screw in it in the center! I gave it the same lube treatment as the others, and headed down to the bottom of the machine!

Fairly easy procedure here. See that black round thing? You unscrew that, and the whole bottom plate comes off.

Eeek, a lint monster! Luckily, those are easily dealt with! The pad, which is on the plate to catch any oil that might drip down, was in good shape, and the bottom overall was pretty clean. There's two gears under here that needed my attention.

That brown stuff is all old, dried up grease. I have no idea how long it had been on there, or when the last time these gears received the lubrication they needed. But that's okay, I was about to fix that.

Using my awe once again, I scraped away as much of the dried on bits of grease as I could manage, paying careful attention to the area between the teeth of the gears.

Even the side gear had a good amount of this stuff on it.

Ah, that's better! A quick and thorough lube, and it's off to the next set.

AUGH! It's almost worse than the lint monsters!

It doesn't take long, though, to get the worst of the offending substance off from on and around the gears.

A little bit goes a long way!

After the lubrication, I like to go ahead and oil the joints under the machine so I don't have to flip her over and take off the plate again. I tilt it a bit and turn the hand wheel, and just put a drop or two of oil on every joint I see that makes any movement.

Once that's done, the bottom plate is put back on again(don't worry about putting it on wrong, it only fits proper in one direction!), and the machine is flipped over again!

For this last step, I put the top back on again and follow the guide holes for lubricating the rest of the machine.

It's fairly easy. Just reference the manual and follow the directions! If you don't have a manual and have an older Singer, make sure to look it up on their website. Many times the manuals are available for a free download.

And that, my friends, is all for this session! There's a couple parts I missed under where the faceplate would be for oiling, and I still need to take the bobbin case out and evict any more lint monsters that might be lurking under there, but for now? This girl is pretty darn happy.

I plugged her in and ran her a bit, then threaded her up and gave her a quick test spin. She ran fast and hard, and sewed a perfect stitch right off the bat.

Needless to say, I am in love. I originally grabbed her with the idea that I'd get her cleaned and fixed up and find another home for her, but I don't think I'm going to be able to let this girl go.