Truly is it said that sewing machines attract more sewing machines, once you get past two or three...

At the last count, we had - oh, about 11, lurking about in various states of repair, most almost ready to go on to their new homes, and one waiting to be fetched; it's a long way away, but I would go a long way for a free treadle, in good condition! I found an old but respectable machine table for "Tiffany," the Janome/New Home that has a very brittle plastic box and base, at the tip this weekend. Nearby was a tempting plastic box... I peered inside, but it was a fairly modern Alfa with integral motor and stitch patterns. Not a hope; I am not a qualified electrician, so I am not allowed to take anything with a power supply from our tip. But suffice to say, an everyday miracle occurred, and the machine ended up in the back of my car! I got it home, vacuumed & oiled it and tried it out - perfect! It has that lovely solid purr of a machine that has been well-used & cared for, and a sticker that shows it has been regularly serviced.

There's a good home lined up for it already; I knew someone who will use it to the full, only having an elderly but reliable zigzag machine. Even that is being passed on, to someone who has no machine at all & needs one for her Textiles GCSE. So although it's not a human-powered machine, I feel at least I've saved something worthwhile from an early landfill grave!

I need to make a first post, although we haven't gone anywhere yet, or I won't be able to find this blog again! So here's a little pic of my Vesta Saxonia to keep us all going...

I suspect this will be the machine we use the most outside, as she's very light and her case is small but sturdy. The only problem will be finding needles, as she uses narrow, round-shanked 12x1's, which are no longer made. But I have high hopes of tracking some down - sadly I'm sure people are throwing them out, thinking no-one will ever want these - much like they do with the machines themselves.

Plans are afoot for making a quilt-top; we toyed with the idea of making a wearable garment in each location, but I could see this getting rather out-of-hand as pleats and tucks were being discussed... and that was just a wrap-round skirt! If we had enough narrow-hemmers it might have been a handkerchief, but being thoroughly modern misses in other ways, they'd never use those, so a quilt it shall be.

So this blog is a way of justifying the space my "rescues" take up; those that can't go off to Africa to enable someone to make a living, or be rehomed with someone who will love & use them. It's a way of showing that these little old snippets of history are still useful and have a future in a world which may need to reduce its power-consumption quite drastically. It's also a History & IT project from the home-education angle, and a way of demonstrating that teenage girls can have fun and make something useful in a thoroughly old-fashioned way!