My Machine Quilting Began with a Hunt

I’ve always had a love of sewing machines, quilting, and fabric…lots of pretty fabric! This love, this fascination began when I was around 5 years old. The fascination with quilting kick started when I retired and suddenly had the TIME for all that lovely fabric.

My first experience with a sewing machine was a hand-crank Hunt machine. It’s been so long ago, that I don’t recall whose machine it actually was. I just remember getting to sit down and turn that handle for the first time. I watched mesmerized as the needle pried its way into the material and returned to the surface…creating a stitch. It actually took me longer to sew a seam on that Hunt than it did doing so by hand, but the perfection of the stitches was unparalleled. This perfection of stitches would revolutionize my sewing and eventually my quilting, I was hooked!

Over the years, I got to use treadle machines and earlier electric machines…Singers, Whites, New Homes, Kenmores, Vikings. Each machine had qualities that made them fascinating to me. As a young child, everyone I knew who owned a machine, owned just one and would likely keep that machine their entire life. Until, my mother, that is.

Growing up in my home, the sewing machine that my mother eventually owned was a Singer that sewed zig-zag stitches…just barely. At the time that Singer was top of the line. To sew any of the fancier stitches required opening the manual to find all the codes needed to produce the desired decorative stitch.

My mother’s machine was never out unless it was being used. In use, that beauty went up on the dinning room table. We had to hurry through what ever project we were working on, clean up, and put the machine away before dinnertime. Worse, mother might not allow me to use the machine again for weeks or months! It was too much bother to bring out for a child to “play”.

Eventually, she traded her Singer in for a Kenmore with true decorative stitches and no coded settings, just an ordinary dial. It was like paradise for my mother. Some years later, she traded up yet again, this time for a Viking. That Viking was amazing for it’s time and I do believe my mother thought it buttered her bread and fried her bacon.

My aunt, who had grandmother’s treadle, often told my mother that she was being too extravagant. Going through THREE sewing machines in one lifetime–who could image! She may have been extravagant, but one thing never changed…those sewing machines were always tucked away, unless in use! It was as if she were guarding a secret. That or she was ashamed that the world would see that she sewed.

I loved going over to my aunt’s, where the old family treadle was always on display–although rarely used. This was the aunt who called my mother extravagant for having bought three sewing machines in a 10 or 15 year span. I always pondered the paradox of displaying a machine she didn’t use…wasn’t this extravagant, as well?

My Sewing Machine Collection Starts…

After college and had my own apartment, I bought my first very own sewing machine, a Singer with a cabinet! The cabinet cost at least as much as the sewing machine, but my sewing machine would never be tucked away in a closet. It would always be ready for my nimble fingers and fabric. Sometimes neatly in it’s cabinet…more often than not out and adorned with an ongoing project and all the glorious clutter that accompanies each project. Yes, right out there for all the world to see. Talk about being extravagant. I definitely embraced that decadence!

Only a few years passed before I bought another machine, a Viking similar to the one owned by my mother. But I held onto the Singer and cabinet. I took the Singer out of the cabinet and replaced it with the new machine. Sadly, tucked the Singer in a closet, until I had room for a second cabinet. Years passed, and several moves occurred, before I found space for a second cabinet…or three. I no longer have that original old Singer, however, I still have the cabinet.

One day as I was getting ready to move across the country, I pulled my old friend out to clean it up to prepare for a move. Oops, I found out what happens when you abandon one of your machines in a closet unused for years on end. I did a deep clean and servicing of the Singer and packed it up for the movers.

For years, I never owned more than two sewing machines at a time, because I simply didn’t have the room. But eventually, my husband and I found our forever home and I now have a collection of machines for every practical purpose. I never dreamed of owning a quilting machine and frame, but now I do.

Sadly, my aunt has been gone many, many years. But I can’t help but wonder how extravagant she would think I am. Not only do I have a number of sewing machines, but I have a room entirely dedicated to my sewing and quilting obsession.