I love my sewing machine. I really do. It is not fancy. It is not new. But I love it all the more for those reasons, I think. I am an old-fashioned gal, really. And sentimental to boot!
I got this sewing machine for my birthday when I was in late high-school, my sixteenth or seventeenth birthday, I am not sure which. It was not new then, either. In fact, I went with my Mum to check it out from an ad we saw in the local newspaper, and we ended up buying it. It was about twenty years old then, if I remember correctly, and a sweet elderly lady was selling it because she had to give up sewing due to Parkinson's disease setting in. She threw in a bunch of old buttons, zippers, some Singer sewing scissors and pinking shears, and a few other odds and ends. It was so exciting to go home and sort through it all.
I used it regularly at that stage for a year or two, then it went on holidays for a few years while I finished uni and went into the full time workforce. I put it back into action once my hubby and I moved into our own home, to help me hem curtains and set up home. It gets used regularly now and has not failed me yet!
Sure, it only does fairly basic stitches, but that's all I need. I enjoy hand embroidery, so I don't use the machine for that. I happen to be one of those old-fashioned people who prefers my old non-computerised sewing machine to a newer, computerised one. My sister is the same - in fact, hers is much older, a Singer she inherited from her grandmother-in-law. It doesn't even do zig-zag! But she loves it.
Maybe it is because I am a creature of habit and not particularly fond of change. Or because I am sentimental. As much as I like some aspects of technology (ummm...hello, I'm blogging, right?), I find some technology just seems to over-complicate life. That reminds me of the start of "The Gods Must Be Crazy" movie, when the narrator talks about how in the "civilised" world, people made machines to simplify life and ended up complicating things far more...
Or maybe I'm just plain intimidated by fancy machines with one thousand and one functions. Hmmm. Probably.
What sewing machine do you use? Do you like ones with lots of bells and whistles, or a simpler machine with basic functions?
Please leave a comment below to weigh in. Thanks :)
Or maybe I'm just plain intimidated by fancy machines with one thousand and one functions. Hmmm. Probably.
What sewing machine do you use? Do you like ones with lots of bells and whistles, or a simpler machine with basic functions?
Please leave a comment below to weigh in. Thanks :)
I started off with a sewing machine Mum bought me in high school from the school when they upgraded their machines. It too was a birthday present! Just basic and taught me to sew on something less daunting than Mum's expensive machine! I bought myself a basic Janome a few years ago, but with all the sewing and applique I do now, I upgraded to a computerised one, mainly for the ease of switching between stitches and doing some fancy embroidery stitches. Still not fancy compared to the bigger more expensive models, but will do me for the forseeable future!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing, Kathryn. You use yours quite a bit, I can tell! And the products you come up with are just lovely :)
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