Monday, February 18, 2008

"What's Wrong With This Picture?"

Over Thanksgiving weekend, one of my sons took my camera, and came back with this picture, asking, "What's wrong with this picture?"
Nothing. Looks great to me.
"Too damn many sewing machines."
No Such Thing!

To be fair, the ones to the left of the lamp belong to 2 of my daughters. They move them to another table in the same room when we're all sewing together. To the right are my serger and two machines of mine. The one in the back is my relatively new (3 year old) Singer, which replaced the Brother I bought in 1989, and had finally given up the ghost. In the front is a used Janome, all metal, very sturdy machine. When my Singer and serger went in for repair, my husband spotted this Janome for $35 and brought it home for me. I didn't need it, but he wanted me to have it. That's why he never has to buy me Valentines, birthday, anniversary, or any other kind of present: because he buys me anything he thinks I might want, whenever he sees it. While this present was cheap, often they aren't, but he says his girl is worth it. (I still have the Singer he bought me while we were dating, way back in 1979, but I couldn't resist the blind hemmer in the Brother a decade later, and he thought it was worth any price for me to be happy.)

For the most part, however, I think the "old stuff" is better than new. When I was 14, I found an ancient iron at a neighbor's garage sale for $2. It must be '50s vintage. It's light pink, with a fabric cord, and outrageously heavy. My daughter dropped (Dropped!!!) it about 2 summers ago, and chipped the pointy tip of it, and cracked the housing where the handle is. Unbelievable! You know Mom went ballistic. So, my sons couldn't think of Christmas presents for me, and three of them got together, summoned up all of their courage, and went to Macy's housewares
department. They found "an older lady" and asked her for her heaviest iron for their mother. She grabbed this Rowenta, and sold it to them. I would never have allowed them to spend this much on me, but I'm touched that they think that much of their old mom. I am truly fortunate.

1 comment:

pam said...

There is nothing wrong with that picture of those machines! And what a sweet story about the iron. We have an old refrigerator in the basement from the 50's that just keeps chugging along, while my newer ones never seem to work quite right!