Member Spotlight

Robin Keller

Sewing was the first love. My grandmother taught me to sew using her Singer treadle when I was about seven, tossing her old housedresses onto the dining room table and teaching me to cut patterns for Barbie doll clothes. That morphed into clothing for the youngest two sisters (summer outfits) and dresses for high school when I didn't like my mother's taste in clothing. Thirty years later that led to an obsession with vintage machines. I own a Howe from the late 1840's, my 1865 Wheeler Wilson has a glass presser foot, an 1878 Wheeler Wilson, a hand-crank Wilcox & Gibbs, and like 8-9 others (had to quit collecting when I ran out of wall space). I learned to knit at about ten in a class at the Boston Store. I remember sitting in 7th grade Chorus class and knitting scarves using my brother's drumsticks, probably comparable to a 13-15 needle. And I have taught knitting.

A lot of you know that I am a reenactor (Civil War, French & Indian, and lately building a wardrobe for Regency, Jane Austen era). I made clothing, accessories and wool quilts for fellow campers. When you use double points (4 to 5 needles) to knit socks at a reenactment, you look like a flipping rock goddess! And using that hand-crank to sew a piece of clothing is a teaching opportunity to explain that Elias Howe got the first American patent, not Singer. Singer invented the installment plan so every home could afford a machine. I've provided many school programs talking about this.

Fast forward many years, and crafting became cloth dolls with hand embroidered faces, knit toys using a washable acrylic/wool blend (because plain acrylic gets in my hands - ewhhhh), using high end wool or alpaca for hats, cowls, mittens, scarves, and socks (which only matters to ME in this low-cost mega-store society). I have dabbled in working with stained glass. For several years I entered items into the Crawford County and Waterford Fairs. Lately it's been whole cloth hand quilted blankets, cotton / flannel reversible. I totally admit I will never have teeny Amish stitches. Might not sell, but personal enjoyment is built in.

The sewing machines that get the most use are my Singer 1956 and 1957 models. I just now this summer, bought a machine younger than me, a Janome Sewist 721 that is capable of free motion machine quilting if I want to try that. And zig zag. And overlock. And so much more than a straight line.