Sewing Machines

I am 7 years old, sitting on a cast-off dining chair that screeches like a banshee when it's pushed across the concrete floor. My feet do not reach the floor, but that's OK, because the sewing machine I am sitting in front of has a knee lever. Press it with your knee, and the machine sews. Press it harder and the machine sews faster.The machine, my mother's old White, is black metal with gold scrollwork. I am making doll clothes. I don't like dolls, but that is how you learn to sew when you are 7; you make teeny tiny ball gowns.

You smell damp masonry as you approach the old factory atop the Jones Falls Valley just above downtown Baltimore. The restoration and conversion of the old Lebow Brothers garment manufacturing plant into a new $25 million Baltimore Design School is now five months in the making. Open to the elements since the mid-1980s, it still reeks of abandonment. But that changes by the day. It's a remarkable project in a lightly visited section of the Station North Arts and Entertainment District and the part of Baltimore known as Greenmount West.

You smell damp masonry as you approach the old factory atop the Jones Falls Valley just above downtown Baltimore. The restoration and conversion of the old Lebow Brothers garment manufacturing plant into a new $25 million Baltimore Design School is now five months in the making. Open to the elements since the mid-1980s, it still reeks of abandonment. But that changes by the day. It's a remarkable project in a lightly visited section of the Station North Arts and Entertainment District and the part of Baltimore known as Greenmount West.

The sewing lounge Sassy SEWer in Parkville has eight sewing machines for customers, but when Tamara Woods goes, she takes her own. It's not just about the machines, she said. "It's about the dedicated time with other sewers. We all like to do this. We chat. It's fun," she said. At home, she sews for other people. At Sassy, she works on raising her skill level and she sews things for herself, combining craftsmanship with fashion sense. "I love the technical part. But it's the creative part that takes over.

Q: I have a collection of tins including those that held spices, tea, coffee, lard, biscuits and so forth. Do you know of a book I can purchase which describes, lists, and prices such items?A: A new book that pictures and describes tins, with their prices, is "Antique Tins -- Identification & Values" by Fred Dodge. It is available for $26.95 from Ace Enterprises, P.O. Box 59354, Chicago, Ill. 60659.Q: I have inherited a Singer sewing machine figural music box made to commemorate Singer's 100th (1851-1951)

To add to his list of retirement activities, 76-year-old Charles Moranville recently picked up sewing. To be more specific, the Eldersburg resident picked up sewing machines. Moranville, who retired 12 years ago from Bendix Field Engineering Corp. (now Honeywell Corp.) in Columbia, began collecting sewing machines in December for transport to Haiti. The machines will be distributed to mothers in the poverty-stricken nation with the hope that they will use them to make clothing for their families.

Q: I received this Hummel Madonna as a gift while in Germany in 1955. Two appraisers have been unable to tell me anything about her. She is ivory with a light brown glaze and the model number is 10/3 with the Full Bee mark.A: This Flower Madonna was made in several colors, including the light brown you describe. It would sell for about $650 -- twice the price of the white version.Q: The attached mark is on the bottom of a china pitcher. It is decorated with two male figures and bunches of grapes with leaves.

As research gives new insights into the past, information about antiques is always being updated.For many years, collectors prized the furniture made by P. Mallard. Records show he was in New York in 1829 but by 1832 was working in Louisiana. His store moved up and down Royal Street in New Orleans until 1874.Mallard made rococo and Renaissance Revival-style Victorian furniture with elaborate carvings. He was known in some directories as Pierre Mallard, but many collectors believed his name was Prudence.

Nadia Karber spread yards of purple fabric across a sewing table, with all manner of lines marking inches. She measured and remeasured to assure accuracy before carefully pinning pattern pieces to the material. Then, from a sturdy apron this 9-year-old had just made for herself, she pulled out her sewing scissors. Just as she was set to cut, her teacher whispered, "Measure again. Your lines are not quite straight. " "I try to save them from their mistakes," said Peggy Steinberg.

Apparently Brazil has enough umbrellas or maybe it just doesn't like outsiders sending pointy items in the mail. The international mail company DHL has sent along a list of items that aren't allowed to be shipped to certain countries. If you send one of the forbidden items, you could find it back on your doorstep. DHL, which delivers to more than 220 countries and territories, says these items are verboten: Mexico - computers, liquids and minerals France - imitation pearls containing lead salts (Mon Dieu, if you're sending a mademoiselle jewelry, make sure it's the real thing!

Nadia Karber spread yards of purple fabric across a sewing table, with all manner of lines marking inches. She measured and remeasured to assure accuracy before carefully pinning pattern pieces to the material. Then, from a sturdy apron this 9-year-old had just made for herself, she pulled out her sewing scissors. Just as she was set to cut, her teacher whispered, "Measure again. Your lines are not quite straight. " "I try to save them from their mistakes," said Peggy Steinberg.

Apparently Brazil has enough umbrellas or maybe it just doesn't like outsiders sending pointy items in the mail. The international mail company DHL has sent along a list of items that aren't allowed to be shipped to certain countries. If you send one of the forbidden items, you could find it back on your doorstep. DHL, which delivers to more than 220 countries and territories, says these items are verboten: Mexico - computers, liquids and minerals France - imitation pearls containing lead salts (Mon Dieu, if you're sending a mademoiselle jewelry, make sure it's the real thing!

The sew shop at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women in Jessup is alive with the ticking sounds of Brother sewing machines, with Maryland state and U.S. flags draped over tables and chairs The sew shop at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women in Jessup is alive with the ticking of sewing machines. Maryland and U.S. flags are draped over tables and chairs, and sewing patterns for the cross bottony, the red-and-white cross on the state flag, are hung neatly in a corner of the room.

Every other week, quilters gather in a sun-drenched community room that overlooks their Harford County homes. They will spend a few hours sewing and socializing, ever aware that they are stitching with a purpose. Like the quilting bees of old that provided families with warmth and comfort, the group, which meets at the Residents' Club at Bulle Rock in Havre de Grace, puts together coverlets that will ultimately let a wounded veteran sense the care and gratitude of a stranger. The quilters, mostly women but also a few men, are part of the "Quilts for the Injured Soldiers Project.

Disabilities ministry to hold workshop "Transformed!" - the disability outreach ministry of New Spirit Community Church - will hold a session of disability awareness training tomorrow for Christian and church ministries on issues facing people with disabilities and their families and what churches and church members can do to help. The workshop will be led by Sib Nafziger Charles, program director for Joni and Friends, Eastern Pennsylvania, an organization that works to evangelize people with disabilities.

Whether you are an accomplished seamstress or a neophyte, volunteers are welcome to join the fourth annual Quilt for Charity tomorrow at Calvary United Methodist Church in Gamber. "You don't have to be a quilter to help," said Genie Corbin, who helped found the Calvary Quilters about a decade ago. "People with no experience can help." Those who do not sew can iron fabric pieces and finish the quilts by tying layers together. "You have to tie about every 5 inches," Corbin said. "It would be a valuable, time-consuming service."

Disabilities ministry to hold workshop "Transformed!" - the disability outreach ministry of New Spirit Community Church - will hold a session of disability awareness training tomorrow for Christian and church ministries on issues facing people with disabilities and their families and what churches and church members can do to help. The workshop will be led by Sib Nafziger Charles, program director for Joni and Friends, Eastern Pennsylvania, an organization that works to evangelize people with disabilities.

The sew shop at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women in Jessup is alive with the ticking sounds of Brother sewing machines, with Maryland state and U.S. flags draped over tables and chairs The sew shop at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women in Jessup is alive with the ticking of sewing machines. Maryland and U.S. flags are draped over tables and chairs, and sewing patterns for the cross bottony, the red-and-white cross on the state flag, are hung neatly in a corner of the room.

In a famous essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," the writer Walter Benjamin hailed the invention of photography as herald of a new era in human history in which images would become infinitely reproducible and available to everyone. Today we are thoroughly immersed in that ocean of imagery Benjamin foresaw; picture-making on a mass scale -- by the camera, the printing press and, more recently, the computer -- has made photographs into mass-produced objects that shape the way millions of people around the world see themselves and each other.