sewing cabinet fits in nicely
In an effort to clean up the basement and convert it into work space I actually want to spend time in, I took a carload of stuff over to my mother’s neighborhood garage sale. After dropping off my load of crap, I walked next door to see what new crap everyone else was selling and I scored a drop down wooden sewing machine cabinet for $2. That’s right, $2.
Ragnar the Viking vs. Rundown Singer
$2 is less than a cup of coffee.$2 is less that the gas it took to drive to my mom’s house. I snagged it up and brought it home, giddy with the thought of sewing in my living room instead of the dungeon of my basement. The plan was to swap out the broken down Singer that came with the cabinet with Ragnar, my beloved Viking sewing machine. But as soon as I opened it up, I saw how the Singer was perfectly set into the cabinet. The router lines were clean and exact and the machine even had screws incorporated into the cast iron body to allow the machine to drop down securely. Ragnar has a plastic body and no room for screws, therefore, no way to drop the machine into the cabinet and negating any possibility that the machine could disappear when not in use. I have 3 children that pounce on any craft I am working on. They would take apart an exposed sewing machine in 4 seconds. Less time than that, if you count pushing it off a table as “taking apart”. Therefore, it is imperative that all craft and handwork items be put out of reach before I go to bed, lest one of them smell an exposed craft project left out on the table and wake up during the night to seek and destroy the fragile and infantile project.
I have learned this lesson over and over with exposed knitting projects and as a result, I have learned to pick up entire rows of dropped stitches very quickly because one of The Rebels has pulled out knitting needles in an attempt to “help” me. The coupe de grass was when Rebel #2 tore the threads out of the serger in the amount of time it took for me to switch the laundry from washer to dryer. If you are not familiar with a serger, it is a sewing machine with 4 needles/knives that cut and sew at the same time. Two needles are above the sewing plate and two needles/knives are below. A serger comes with special tweezers and in the instruction manual, it suggests tying new thread to the old and pulling through, so you don’t ever have to re-thread the machine. Major bummer.
Anyway, I realized that the machine and the cabinet were one unit and if I tried to remove the Singer from the cabinet and replace it with Ragnar the Viking, it would be a bloody, hack job of a transplant and the cabinet and Ragnar might both die in the process. So I did what anyone does when they don’t know what to do with a machine. I went online for information. Turns out that The Singer Fashion Mate 257 is beloved by so many that no one sells them. Not even on Ebay. And people blog about how much they love this machine. If it is so great, maybe it will change my life. Maybe this is the missing link between me and eternal happiness. This morning I was getting rid of objects I don’t need. Now I’ve acquired, no, more like adopted, this supreme item I didn’t even know I needed until I saw that others needed it.
I call the local sewing and vacuum repair shop.
“Hello, yes, um… I just bought an old Singer and I am wondering if you can fix it…I don’t know if it works… it doesn’t have a footpetal or a cord to plug it in, or a manual…the guy who sold it to me said it works…Well, I don’t know how he would know if he couldn’t plug it in, either….can you just take a look at it?”
I know, a fool and her money…. But it only cost $2 and they won’t be able to fix it until August. I guess that everyone and their sister is having their sewing machine fixed right now. But now the die is cast and I have a vision of me sewing away on my Singer while Mr. Brown plays piano and a fire burns in the fireplace, and the Rebels sleep snuggly in their beds. I know that I could use Ragnar the Viking for this fantasy as well, but that isn’t the point. And all the time I am using to fix up a jallopy could be used to finish one of the projects in my studio. But what fun is that?
I’ll let you know what the repair man says.
Love,
Brownbuilt
