So while DH and DS were in Austria skiing last week, and in DH's case, acquiring the need for crutches for a ruptured calf muscle
, I went to Scotland to see DM. She's now 81 and suffers from scoliosis of the spine and cannot lift anything heavy.
For xmas 1978 DF traded her unbelievably heavy, knee-lift, cantankerous, 2nd hand Singer (probably a 15 or similar) for a spanking new 522. I turned 21 a few months later so I got one too and, while I got fed up of four-step buttonholes, I could do just about anything I wanted on that machine - it became an extension of my hands in the end. Mine died in 2000 and, while I am happy with its electronic Brother replacement, there's something about it that means it's harder to do dead-straight lines of stitching, for instance. Maybe the trend towards bigger presser feet is something to do with it.
Anyway, when DM offered me her old machine I bit her hand off! I've just been upstairs oiling the moving parts and trying it out. The motor smells like my wee brother's Triang-Hornby train set did (ozone, maybe?), but it works a treat. Here it is on my sewing table. This, BTW, is the table that nearly got scrapped last year when the veneer really started to come away but DH and I stripped the rest of it off with wallpaper scrapers and sanded it down. I then varnished it - the apparent grain is just brush strokes - and it looks pukka again. Not bad for something that's been in the family since the 1930's!