This Space for Rent

Q&D project of the day

Pfaff test #1 -- rag quilt

My uncle-in-law has a Pfaff 130 sewing machine that I’m thinking of buying from him, and he is letting me use it for an evaluation run. I’m going to use it to sew up a couple of more handlebar bags, but I decided that a good first try would be to see how quickly I could crank out a small quilt.

And that would be 45 minutes to dig out my bags of fabric scraps, choose the ones I wanted, cut them to approximate squares, then go up to the attic to get more and do the same, then fire up the mighty Pfaff and let it nail them all together. I wasn’t fussy about seam matching (I wasn’t sure how well the sewing machine would work) but it’s nice in a sort of non-fussy magpie way. And holy goodness that sewing machine is nice – it’s much more heavy-duty than the Featherweight is; It blows right by the sort of fabric which has the Singer jamming up on the drop of a dime, and when the head tells the fabric it’s time to move that fabric just moves.

I believe I will be buying this sewing machine. I’ll be using it to make handlebar bags, so if people buy them I can use the proceeds to pay for it.