I am a sentimental old fool. I hold on to the past with both hands, cradling the link to save it from the ravishes of time. Letting go of items from the past is outside my comfort zone and add that to my attachment feelings for inanimate objects, well it prevents me from embracing change. This is my defense……
Years ago, when I opened my studio, I needed a zig zag sewing machine to sew the edges of the patterns to keep them from fraying. Mom had her mother-in-law’s Singer in storage since Nana became a resident of a nursing home. Remarkably the Singer and I shared the same age so of course we bonded. It was a workhorse that would sew through pretty much anything you could throw at it, was as heavy as a large sack of potatoes and amazingly, still in immaculate shape. But what made it even more special than condition and family history was the carved initials of M. Bird on the metal base representing Marguerite Bird, my father’s mother. In my heart, I was forging a connection with my grandmother through a tangible piece of her past by using it in my present. It was a feel-good association filled with love and pride……until it wasn’t.
Like any appliance or gadget from the past, things were built to last, perhaps spanning the purchaser’s lifetime with its metal parts and gears. Now under my care, I fully hoped the machine would last my tenancy in the studio, sending it out to the Singer repair guy for a yearly overhaul to ensure it.
Throughout 23 years in business, we used it every day and from time to time it had to have minor repairs. In 2022 it came to a decisive halt and needed a new heart, I mean motor, but after one was installed, it seemed to suffer rejection and was the catalyst for all manner of things going wrong. Sadly, that was the end of its former glory.
It certainly tested one’s patience and dear Deborah suffered through breaking thread that fell victim to the wearing out tensions and adjustments, pressing the thread so it would not move along the route and break. At our age, threading a needle requires a magnifying glass, nimble fingers, and murmuring under the breath. But we endured and no matter what the machine threw at us, I had it resuscitated when probably it should have been given last rights back in 2017.
We now have two new employees who have not worked on a machine of this vintage and trying to get around the four sides of a pattern probably seemed like an on-the-job training test of one’s patience. They both handled it far better than me and my four-letter expletives but Friday was the last straw. After the thread snapped on five separate occasions on one pattern, I pulled the plug and the old machine seemed to sigh, or perhaps I did, as we both let go.
The online buy and sell sites offered up plenty of second-hand choices and affordable pricing. I did not need lots of bells and whistles or dozens of fancy stitches, just a straight and a zig zag function. How to decide from the dozens of machines listed and of course, Covid sat in the back of my mind. I really did not want to drive all over the county, go into strangers’ homes to test their machines and risk another infection. That, and I worried about inheriting problems prompting the sale in the first place. So, I opted for a new one and turned my attention elsewhere. Canadian Tire offered a couple of heavy-duty Singer machines that looked promising. After work on Saturday, hubby and I made the trek to Bridgewater to pick up the one that best suited our needs. By 5:30 PM it was unpacked, set up, I had wound several bobbins, something the old machine balked on, and I was zipping around a pattern as clean and smooth as a knife through butter.
Guilt set in while I enjoyed the delightful fruits of my purchase. Poor Deborah had been wrestling with the old beast for years. If not for the cherished carved initials and lineage of the machine, it would have been put out to pasture. Sorry Deb, tradition sucks, eh? To make it up to her I bought the one that has a quick needle threader, so no more squinting and holding that darn magnifying glass. Also, it runs with lightening speed, not limping on its last leg like an old mare, clipping around the edge of the pattern like a thoroughbred in the Kentucky Derby.
Hopefully this new machine lasts until I retire without giving us any grief. I am not a fan of all the plastic parts, knobs and accessories in appliances purchased today; they lack character and form and are not built to last in a disposable world. All I ask is “Dear, lovely machine, please give us a good ten years or until I retire, whatever comes first.” In the meantime, it is a new machine and a new year, fresh starts for all
 The old Singer. Sad to see it go but I'll ask the Singer repair guy if he would like it for parts. I'm sure other machines need donor organs, I mean parts, so it can live on. |  The new Singer. building new memories....... |
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