The only thing that is truly new to me about my sewing machine is that, well, it is new to me–it was originally purchased in the early 60′s by a woman who has barely used it since.
A bit of background: I’ve been sewing since I was 5, and it was the first truly useful craft that I ever learned. My mom had bought me a toy sewing machine for Christmas that frustrated me so much that she finally broke down and let me use hers. I continued to use this machine until I graduated from high school and moved out of my mom’s house. I’ve missed its solid, functional presence ever since.
For high-school graduation, a couple of family friends thought that it would be a great idea to buy me my very own sewing machine so that I could take it with me to college. This was a wonderful and thoughtful gift, but unfortunately I have had problems with it ever since. A lot of the parts are plastic, and it’s just not really built to last. The final straw was last fall when I found out that it was going to cost $90 to fix. I just couldn’t bring myself to spend the money to repair something that had given me nothing but trouble.
After listening to a sales pitch for a $700 machine that didn’t seem much more solidly built than the broken one, I decided that I needed to go back to basics. I started scouring antiques malls for sewing machines, but never found one. I was about to give up when I finally had the inspiration to search Craigslist. Lo and behold, there were 20 listings for sewing machines!
Now most of these ads were for crappy machines like mine, but a few of them were for good old-fashioned ones. After a few weeks of trolling around on Craigslist, I found the perfect one. It is really solid, hasn’t been used that much, and still runs perfectly! I feel like I’ve struck the lottery. Now all I need to do is learn how to oil it, which is tomorrow’s project, and I will be good to go.
Stay tuned for lots of new old-fashioned sewing projects!
what a beauty. i haave been using my mom’s old machine, maybe from the 70′s – works pretty well.
also i recently bought a Really old machine, 30/40′s?? – the machine works fine but it’s missing the bobbin and case, so will take some work yet.
good luck with your projects.
Riverbird,
Thanks! The older machines really are beautiful.
Good luck with your older model. A lot of the parts you can still get if you look around. I hope it works out!
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