1895 Singer Treadle Sewing Machine

Here is a little something I picked up on Saturday at a local garage sale.  I'm super excited about it!  Kent and I looked up the serial number on it and it was built in 1895.  To put a little perspective on it, that is when Mark Twain was alive!  Wow!  It's never been electrified and looks like the original belt in the drawer.  The fancy box is called a 'coffin box' and covers the machine when it is not in use.  I have never seen a coffin box with a machine before this one and thought maybe it was a matching sewing box.  A previous owner had bought the replacement belt in 1995 and it was still in the package in one of the top drawers.  There are also a few old wooden spools in the middle drawer.  

I think this machine is in GREAT condition and it is only missing minor tiny little pieces of the brass drawer pull assembly on the inside of a couple of the drawers.  One of the local antique stores carries spare hardware and will probably have the parts we need to complete the assembly.  We will probably go looking for them this coming Saturday.  I'm excited to let my grandchildren make some doll clothes using this machine!  Kent's mom had a similar machine my girls used to sew on and they loved making doll clothes with it.  It will be fun learning how to sew using the treadle to keep it going!  Yay!!!  Thanks Kent!  (It was an early birthday present.) 

Smile!

I absolutely love this picture Melanie took of Kent and I with some of our grandchildren.  With all the sadness around us, we were able to find the joy.  It was a feat getting them to look and smile at the same time!  

Look What I Found...

While deleting/transferring pics from my cell phone, I found these gems taken at Cabela's in UT while on vacation last December.  Too funny!  Kent still loves them both.  I told him we were NEVER going to have a tree decorated like that as long as I lived!  Just sayin'...

Obsessed!

All I can say for myself is I needed something to do while recuperating--and I could make these sitting in my chair! This is my latest obsession. I made a bunch of these posters for Christmas this year and framed them and gave them to family and friends. I think making them is somewhat like quilting--you kind of have to piece them together until you are satisfied it is aesthetically pleasing to the eye. This is just a sampling of my favorites. I took the "Give Joyfully" phrase from the Pottery Barn catalog. Thanks Melanie for teaching me how to make these awesome posters!!! And thanks a million to Leo Reynolds' amazing photography skills! Here is a link to his pics: Leo Reynolds' Photostream.

Christmas Eve 2010

This year was a very different Christmas for us. I spent most of the time sick. I found out you can have an enjoyable time without spending days on end fixing food and making fancy decorations. We just did the basics this year and we still enjoyed our time together! I didn't take many pictures this year--Erica did and posted most of them. Here we are on Christmas Eve with our good friend Martha. Enjoy!

Clay Eric Landeros

On 21 December 2010 we welcomed our 9th grandchild to the world: Clay Eric Landeros. He weighed 8 lbs. 4 oz. and was 19 inches long.

Here we are as the proud grandparents! Honestly, we were--I was so sick and I didn't hardly dare to hold him or breathe on him! We told Danny to snap the picture quickly before I got any germs on Clay. haha


I made this cute cute Dr. Suess quilt for Clay. Jennifer loves Dr. Suess and collected the books when she was little. They just barely had this fabric designed and released and I was lucky to get it. I had to order it on the internet--no one around here even had it yet. I got it just in time! Now Kent wants me to make Noah a quilt just like this one. He loves it!

I Kid You Not!

Our Relief Society helps facilitate the Bishop's annual Christmas basket giveaway for our ward. Last year, I decided it was really hard to find baskets the right size and affordable, so I switched to paper wrapped boxes. (Funny thing is, everyone still call them baskets.) It requires a bit more effort, but it is totally worth the extra time! Well, being the helpful person he is, Kent wanted to know if I had bought enough paper and how the crew could wrap the boxes in the most cost-effective and efficient way. I went to bed for a good night's sleep. This is what I woke up to the day the crew was coming to help assemble the baskets. Not only had Kent left us an example of a half wrapped box, he had taped "Box Wrapping Instructions" to the bottom of the box! Needless to say, I had bought TONS more wrap than needed and the crew ended up wrapping the boxes as quickly as possible--not necessarily following his instructions. We all had a good laugh over it but we also all appreciated his efforts. :) Moral of the story: Once a scientist, always a scientist!

Almond Time

This time of year usually means it is almond season around here. When Kent goes duck hunting, he drives right by the Schaad Family Nuts Co. This year Kent figured out it was more cost effective to get a 50 pound box of almonds and package the almonds himself. Here he is in his typical scientifically exact mode weighing the almonds down to the last individual almond. The world would stop revolving if one bag ended up with more almonds than the other bag! hahaha J/K

The Great Pumpkin

There are benefits to waiting until nearly the last day before Halloween to go to the local pumpkin patch and buy your pumpkins. One being that the really big pumpkins that were 40 dollars earlier in the month are only 10 dollars when they just want to unload them. Kent fell in love with that monstrous pumpkin in the back. He was so proud of it people thought he grew it himself. He just appreciated the fact that he was able to get such a fine specimen for a cheap price! He especially enjoyed all the kids who came to trick or treat that asked him if it was real and gave it a pat. Well, time passed after Halloween and Kent couldn't bear to throw out his pumpkin. It sat on our front doorstep greeting all who came to the door. I thought he would never get rid of it.

Soon it was December and we went out of town for one of Kent's work meetings to Reno. When we got back, the pumpkin was gone. Being the completely non-observant person that I am, I did NOT notice the giant pumpkin was missing. Kent was trying to figure out how I got in in the yard waste container...and missed his great pumpkin...

Not long after, the Denison family came to deliver a Christmas present. Who knew you could do this with a pumpkin?


The Denison family had taken the pumpkin while we were in Reno and brought it back dressed and ready for the winter festivities. How clever is that?! Oh, we love that Denison family! What a GREAT Christmas surprise.

p.s. And until that pumpkins starts to rot, it isn't going anywhere! Kent is still in love with it!

Romance on the Trip to Ireland Quilt

Only 3,627 pieces! I finally got my quilt top for my bed done today. I love it! It will probably take a month of Sundays to get it quilted, but at least it is done! I am going to scallop the edges. Kent says he doesn't want to be around for that part.

I started this quilt about 6 years or so ago and then got discouraged when it was going to be too small for our bed because of the extra 'therapeutic' mattresses on the top of our bed I needed for my arthritis. It meant having to mess with borders and the scale of the quilt and I didn't want to do that. So, I did what any good quilter would do--stashed it in a cupboard! Well, last year we got a new mattress--a real posturepedic therapeutic mattress and the quilt would fit just fine as it was originally designed! Well, I just needed motivation and I finally got it. I dug it out this week and have been working on it. I'm glad I finished it. It feels good to get it done. I need to take my sewing machine in to be serviced next week, so I will use the down time to get it sandwiched and ready to quilt. Love it!

My New Camera is here!

I finally got my new camera yesterday! Our old one only took blurry pictures and I really needed a camera to document my psycho crazy quilting! haha It's a Nikon D5000 and Melanie and Erica say it should be a good fit! It was a bit of an issue getting it. I ordered it from Costco.com on May 18th and it seemed like it took forever to get here! Then, when it came yesterday, all the boxes inside the package were open and there was wrapping paper in the box! Someone else had bought and returned the camera! After a quick trip to the Clovis Costco--the only place in the valley that had one--I finally can enjoy having a camera that actually works! I'm going to put my Dear Jane quilt back up on the wall and take some decent pictures now!