sewing machine and cheap 'new' clothes

I grew up with access to a sewing machine. I never had the patience to sit down and learn to sew properly but I am able to master the simplest things, such as taking trousers in slightly or ensuring that they are more or less the right length. And while I had never really appreciated the presence of this magical machine I quickly learned its usefulness after I had left home.

Last Saturday I took the tube and a buss and walked to a sewing machine shop. Finally I would join the league of happy tailors. I was slightly less happy carrying the heavy box back to the tube replacing bus service and the tube and then home but as soon as the red box was down on the floor in our entrance, I felt good.

Yesterday, after work and training I finally had the opportunity to open the enchanting box and take out the shining white machine. I have a birthday dinner to go to tonight and was, hence, determined to finish transforming my long, wide, white trousers to purple calf length ones. As if there was nothing else I could possibly wear for the occasion.

Sewing machines tend to function in more or less the same way. However, there are minor differences that can end up being crucial for the outcome of the operation. It is usually the bobbin winding that gets me. Every time. Obviously had I once opened the instruction manual I would have saved myself from the embarrassing moment of getting it wrong, yet again, but I belong to the group of people who thinks that manuals are the most useful as tinder. So I threw out the wasted thread and was pleased by the fact that my mother was thousands of kilometres away – could not deal with THE look and that sigh. You knew the one saying “How many times have I told you…?”

Before midnight my trousers had finally adopted their new look and I was ready to go to bed. I tossed and turned as my mind was troubled by an endless list of projects. I could see my new purchase to turn into a heavy workload. But a pleasurable one.