Singer Simple

Hearing that I had hand sewn a couple of rice bags as Christmas gifts, my mom asked if I would be interested in having a sewing machine. I told her that I was interested in doing some small simple things, and had gotten a hand held machine that was so pitiful I had to return it. Not too long later, mom and dad presented me with a post-Christmas gift of the Singer Simple.

It is a good machine with an even better marketing campaign designed to lure inexperienced sewers. The name in and of itself suggests that sewing is simple and maybe that I'll even sing through projects with pure delight. The DVD shows designer outfits, including trendy jeans and exquisite crafts, all the while explaining mightily complex abilities to soothing, yet upbeat music which cons the gullible sewer into thinking this is indeed simple.

I can say they are complex abilities because I have now completed 3 projects and 1 lesson none of which were enhanced with soothing, upbeat music or complete ease. I should have taken a hint when it took 3 of us adults with some 60 years and one semester of experience to figure out how to thread the machine and bobbin. Once this monumental task is complete, the beginner starts to get cocky thinking she can sew.

My first project, I have named "laughter". I had a t-shirt in the closet for the last year whose hem had fallen out. It's been there for 2 reasons. The first is that I am a daughter of parents whose parents survived the depression. This means that I am not allowed to throw away anything. And yet I'm of the generation that some would call lazy or that we would call economically savvy. When mom heard about the shirt, she said she would have hemmed it long ago by hand. This is where we differ. I know that hemming it by hand would have taken me a couple of hours, that time is money and that a brand new t-shirt from the store could cost me $10, thus I wouldn't even be making minimum wage if I had 2 hours to spare and if I wanted to spend those 2 hours hemming an old t-shirt.

So I take out the t-shirt thinking I can sew a simple hem. Mom looked at me warily saying it was a knit fabric- like that should clue me in! I was thinking it's a t-shirt- how hard can this be? 40 some years of experience shakes her head at her naive daughter. I start sewing and the material is not moving through the machine well, plus it's making weird noises. Mom says something is not right and proceeds to read through the manual. Being of the now generation, I know the clock is ticking and know it's only an old t-shirt, plus I'm not a perfectionist, so I just keep on sewing and drag the hem the entire way through the missing section. Mom comes to see the finished product and this is how the moniker "laughter" is appropriated. My hem is now a ruffle 3/4 of the way around the shirt. Undaunted, I hem the rest of the 1/4 hem which was intact and make a completed ruffle. Now I'm laughing too. This is not how the t-shirt was originally, but I have now made a fortune. You see I've been to the Houston galleria, where they sell $300 jeans that they have gone to great effort to make look worn in, torn up, antiquish, but trendy and new. Now I have a t-shirt that really is an antique, but newly done over. I'm not sure how trendy it looks, but I tell mom over her laughter that this will be the latest style and that everyone will want one.

Project #2 is another redone shirt that becomes the cover for my machine. Yes, technology fools us by trying to pretend it gives us greater ease in life while causing more work all on it's own. I named this project "ah-ha, oh-oh, hooray". The ah-ha came when I discovered why project "laughter" did not feed through the machine- the feeder feet were not engaged. I start sewing project #2 and complete 3 sections with no problems, getting all cocky, singing inside, thinking this really is simple. That is when the machine launched it's protest saying that I was just a monkey with a peddle and that it's under belly contained the real brains and work of the operation. I started to stitch and it went on strike. The DVD always showed one thread on top and one on bottom, but now 40 friends joined the under guy to mock me. I cut them loose and tried again, and again, and again, then called my mom who said the tension must be wrong. Now I saw my error. I really had no clue what I was doing. There were 4 dials, all of which are tension somethings, none telling me to what they were or which one was not properly adjusted or how much to adjust it. I quickly learned that every fabric, thread and project has it's favorite tensions that they hold in secret to the inexperienced sewer. I'm not sure what all I adjusted, but the underbelly got tired of holding up the project, most likely anticipating it's delight in the next step of my humiliation. I was about to stitch two long straight seams. This should be easy, simple, singing time I thought. Instead, I once again became the 12 year old behind a car who realized on our acreage that a machine with a motor is not as easy to steer or control as it had seemed all my life. The sewing machine is no different. The gas pedal is an art to be mastered in and of itself and there is no steering wheel, but steering is very much necessary. I weaved all over the desired place, but stayed on the road and determined my project a monumental success. (see green cover in picture)

I have actually been slowly gaining skill- I think. Project #3 is called "unmatched beauty". I was hemming the sleeves of an old cardigan sweater. It was a man's sweater at one time, but now it has feminine flair with a ruffled look (that I actually tried to do- on purpose- sort of). Only the sleeves do not look the same. One has lots of ruffle and the other a slight wave. It is indeed more beautiful and no longer falling apart, but please admire each sleeve one at a time and not side-by-side.

No matter. I now have several functional pieces that were once only taking up closet space, a machine for all my "simple" projects and the memories of laughter, ah-ha, hoorays and beauty that I'm sure will continue for years to come.

Thanks mom and dad for all my future adventures in sewing!