Teaching Sewing!

In the last week I have spent 6.5 hours teaching 2 other women how to sew, have been offered an old Singer sewing machine, and had a man tell me he's going to start a patchwork quilt for his son's bed.

I discovered that I CAN teach sewing.  It's easier than teaching piano, because I don't expect the learner to practice what I've taught.  We just pick up at the same point the next lesson time.  I'm a "plain sewer," because I just do straight seams and simple curves and nothing fancy.  Maybe it's because I prefer to sew on my mother's old blackhead singer, and it only goes forward and backward.  No zigzag, even.

Recently I bought two green singer machines with zigzag, a 327 k and a 338.  I practiced sewing on them, gave one away, loaned out the second, and I Still prefer my mother's old sewing machine.  She was employed as a Singer Girl at Kresge's in Salt Lake City before she got married and bought her machine then.  After she got married she traded in her first machine for a second "more up-to-date" machine and that is the one I have now.  I adored it all the time I was growing up and she let me have it halfway through college.  My Dad had bought her a Singer Fashion Mate for Christmas.  She had a Bernina when she died, and it is still at home with my Dad.

I also have an old singer with a "Godzilla finish" on it.  This is the same as the blackhead singer but has a sort of nubby brown matte finish on it.  I had to go buy a new presser foot for it.  It came in a cabinet with three drawers down the right side.  It makes a nice table for odds and ends.  I don't actually sew with it.

I have another sewing machine in a cabinet in the garage.  It's an old brown Kenmore,  the all metal kind, quite heavy, straight stitch again.  It works too.

For fancy stitching, I bought a Singer basic portable sewing machine, and a rolling carry case for it.  I use it for zigzagging and stitching on a quilt binding when I want a special stitch pattern.  It was less than $200 dollars and sews nicely.  It is a lot easier to lug around than one in a cabinet. Like my daughter did.

 I did buy a blackhead singer older than my mother's, complete with cabinet, drove down and gave it to my newly married daughter and she lugged it to church and helped do Christmas project sewing with it.  The other women were astonished that she knew how to use it and that she would bring it to church to sew with.  A sewing machine in a cabinet is not exactly portable, but can be done fairly easily if you really want to!