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My Grandma’s Blocks

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After my Aunt Thelma passed away, my cousin Linda found these blocks that our grandmother had made and kindly offered them to me. I have very few memories of my grandmother. I was only 4 when she passed away. I think most of my memories of her were actually from photos, so when I was offered some blocks she made I was thrilled to have them. Now years later I want to put them together but find they are all have their own finished size and originality. 😉
I thought I could possible take the smallest block and cut them down to match but that would leave some odd width and crazy edges on many of the blocks.
After some further investigation find the seam allowance inconsistency was probably the problem.
Check out the multiple piecing just to get some strips to length.
The fabrics are an eclectic mix of what appears to be fabric from clothing. The fabrics are pretty delicate but not too delicate to handle and work on.
Here is a photo of one block on top of another block. You can see a huge difference in size.
The seams are machine sewn.
The fabrics look like they were actually ripped to size but are fairly a consistent 2″ width.
I’ve decided to take the blocks apart, press, cut to accuracy and sew back together.
It will be a labor of love.
Here are a few broken down blocks. I’m committed now right?

Working on my Singer 201

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Here is my Singer 201 standing on its head while I took off the hand crank and replaced the motor. I’ve had this sitting around needing to repair it for about a year. I decided today was the day and while it was messy getting carbon on my hands, it was really easy to take off, clean up and put the new one on.

Now I’m ordering a replacement light switch. The prior owner blew this thing up. They just plugged it in with badly dried out wiring and melted the coating all over. I bet from the residue that they saw some flames too. I purchased a rebuilt motor from a reputable machine source. It’s really amazing how much access there is online to old machine parts. This is a really heavy machine head but it is going to run like butter when I get it done. It came with a cabinet that I plan to paint black. Why did I wait so long??? I can’t wait to sew on this.