Guess what, I've taken on a new project!

Yes, that's right. Because I have so much extra time in my life for all this stuff, haha.

Anyway I was at my neighbor's place last week when he opened his garage to reveal this gorgeous albeit neglected thing sitting there all covered with dust:

"Wow!" I said. "That is a cool old sewing machine!"

"Actually I've been looking for a new home for it," he said. "You want it?"

Heck yeah I wanted it. And now it's sitting in my garage, just waiting for me to start work restoring it. Except of course I really have no idea how. My dream, though, is to fix it up and use it to make a quilt to give to my wonderful neighbor in thanks for such an awesome gift.

With the help of some of the great people on the QuiltingBoard, I was finally able to identify this machine as an early model 15, manufactured in Germany. Sadly that's about all the info I can get about it, because the factory in Germany (and all its records) were destroyed by the Russian army during World War II. So cool as this machine is, I'm afraid many of its details will remain a mystery.

Do you know how to restore an old sewing machine? I'd love some tips!

Henry's quilt top is HUGE. I don't know why I thought I was making a twin sized quilt, it's really more like a full.

Of course that's not huge by most people's standards, but it's huge by the standards of a Brother CS6000i sewing machine, which has a ridiculously short neck. I had trouble doing twin quilts on this machine; I don't know how I'm going to get a full through it.

This is what made me decide that I need some alternate method of basting. I've tried taping quilts to my kitchen floor and pin basting, but the tape never sticks and I just end up frustrated. I've tried spray basting them, but the spray basting never sticks either, and I just end up frustrated. So this time I tried Googling "fool-proof quilt basting" and I found instructions for making a basting frame.

The parts cost me around $45, which is really very cheap when you consider what something like this would cost ready-made. Of course I only got 8 foot boards for mine, because the 10 foot boards were $1 a foot while the 8 foot ones were only $1.30 total. Huge difference, and I figured I wasn't ever going to be using this thing for a king anyway, since I'm having trouble imagining even quilting a full on my little Brother.

So the original plan was to ask my husband to make this thing for me, but let's face it--I can't even get the guy to replace a smoke detector in a timely fashion. So unless I want my boards sitting in the garage gathering dust it looks like it's going to be my project. And I'm about as handy as a two year old, so it should be interesting.