No secret, I like sewing. I also like sewing machines. They fascinate me. They have ever since I took home economics in junior high and received my own sewing machine as a high school graduation gift from my parents.
The Youtube video “Secret Life of Machines: The Sewing Machine, Part I” fed my fascination. Even my husband enjoyed the demonstration of three people using a spear-sized needle to punch through white boards, make a loop underneath where a man pushed a basketball-sized bobbin through that loop to make a stitch.
For decades my high school gift sufficed. I made clothes for myself and my children, mended the holes little boys scoffed into the knees of their britches, repaired a few toys and made doll clothes. Then some major part of my sewing machine broke and it could not be repaired. I already had a second, similar sewing machine that I had picked up at a yard sale, but … for some reason that loss of a machine precipitated an intrigue with second-hand sewing machines. In the past 20 years I have purchased, tested and handed along sewing machines to my son’s wives, to granddaughters, my sister and my daughter.
Then I joined the quilt guild to share my passion for sewing. One evening we pulled out our portable machines to make blocks for a community quilt, half a dozen women gathered at one table. Each hauled a black box to the table and each pulled out a small black sewing machine reminiscent of the one my grandmother used to make me clothes. What was this? Some sort of secret club?
Not a secret club, but owners of a Singer Featherweight sewing machine that many prefer to use at guild meetings: The Featherweight weighing a mere 12.5 pounds, first came on the scene in the 1930s and continued to be sold into the 1970s. I learned a lot about the machines over the course of the next few months, especially after I found one for myself and then another that my daughter immediately claimed for herself.
I thought I had the whole vintage sewing machine thing under control – until my Facebook page suggested I might be interested in joining online groups of others who like sewing machines. I joined the Featherweight Sewing Group and then the Vintage Sewing Machine Group.
I don’t advise anyone who has even the slightest tendency to compulsive-obsessive behavior to do that. These folks (mostly women) feed each other’s obsession with antique sewing machines. They don’t just sew with the machines and have a back-up machine, they collect the things. They smuggle them into the house so that their husbands do not realize they purchased yet another machine and they look for more. A few even have husbands who feed their addiction. One woman reported her husband was bringing home her third (or was that fourth) treadle sewing machine.
Over the weekend my phone kept clicking, buzzing and dinging with new notifications from the Vintage Sewing Machine group. A couple collectors found vintage machines in excellent condition at grab and run prices. The rest of the members posted their congratulations and envy. Many knew what to do to fix possible problems, where to find the parts and the history of the manufacturers.
Sunday morning, an aficionado declared she had arrived in heaven. She posed in front of The All Saints Clothing store in Las Vegas with a long floor-to-ceiling wrap-around window filled with hundreds of shiny black vintage sewing machines on nine shelves. Unbelievable.
Near the end of the day, one successful hunter announced she had purchased three sewing machines that day – at least two came with cabinets. She showed a picture and explained she had literally gone all over the St. Louis area searching for machines to check off her list of “must haves” and add to her collection … or “herd” as some in the group call their collection. And finally a collector proudly showed a picture of her herd. I think I counted 26 sewing machines: portables, machines in cabinets, aged and industrial.
That picture pulled me back from the edge. I may like machines, but I also like space. The time had come to cull my small herd of seven. I posted two on a Facebook yard sale page and sold them almost immediately.
I plan to cull at least one more. I don’t need anything more than a back-up for my back-up. I don’t need another machine – not even if all the members of the Vintage Sewing Machine group say otherwise. I just have to make the really difficult decision as to which one I must let go. I just have to keep chanting, I need the space to sew. I don’t need this many machines. I can do it. I can step away from the obsession. But if you happen to have a Bernina 320 that you no longer want and it costs very little, give me a call. My herd calls for one to join them.
(Joan Hershberger is a staff writer at the News-Times. Email her at joanh@everybody.org.)