Where It All Began

 

While staying at my folks' house during our evacuation, I took these pictures of my mom's sewing machine. This is the very one that I learned on way back when (nearly fifty years now,  pretty wild).

 It looms so much larger in my memory and in my mind. It was one of the most expensive and important tools in the entire household back then as far as kid-me knew. I viscerally remember the Christmas my Mom was gifted it by my Dad, back in our old house. She was shocked and thrilled and very happy. There was even some surprised yelling which was super unusual and probably why I recall it so clearly. I remember my Dad being very pleased that he'd chosen a good gift. So to me, it was such a big deal to get to use it as a kid.

There were many many rules I was to follow. I wasn't supposed to use it when Mom wasn't home, that's the main rule that I specifically recall. Probably a safety/supervision thing. I was sorely tempted many times when I had those after school at home without Mom hours I could have been sewing. The one time I was a rebel and did it anyway, I screwed up threading the machine and it got all tangled up and thus I was found out. The ban from sewing didn't last long. Thankfully, Mom understood how into it I was. I had free range to use her fabric scraps, which I certainly took advantage of having so many choices. And every time we visited the library I checked out any and all "Patchwork" books they had. 

It was a much more complicated machine compared to my grandmother's and once when she visited us for a week, she brought along her own with her to sew my brother and I clothes. I quizzed her about it and I remember her saying she only had so much time to get it done, and it made more sense to sew on a machine she knew well. Truer words, right?

I eventually learned how to use the machine and all its stitches and was even able to help my Mom sometimes because I was a more frequent user. One of the only times I ever heard her swear as a kid was when she was working on a beautiful gown for herself out of Qiana, which was a super slick and slinky synthetic nylon knit. It was the famous "Infinite Dress" and once she finally got the right needle, it came together and boy was she ever beautiful in it! Ahhh the seventies...

That pincushion in the first picture is her second one, because my brother ruined the traditional red tomato one by poking the emery strawberry pouch too many times. The emery leaked out like so much playground sand and that was the end of that. We got her that one as a replacement and there it still is in all its wild 70's glory.