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Aunt Norie’s Sewing Room

By Eleanor Mckee - | Jan 20, 2010

A busy young mother said: “Guess what I got for Christmas? A sewing machine.”

She’d talked about it often. Her husband knew they really needed one.

He said: “It seems all of the clothes we buy for Sis have sleeves way too long for her. We take them over to Grandma, and wait for her to fix them, and Bud has to wait for Grandma to make those special patches on his jeans’ knees.”

Another young lady is very excited — she also got a sewing machine for Christmas.

“I want to learn to do my own altering and so much more,” she said.

She has special designing skills that will just bloom, I know. She is now signed up for sewing lessons. I can’t use business names here, of course. However, I can say not all but some fabric shops offer or know where you can find sewing lessons, so I’d suggest you start there.

You can learn so quickly how a garment goes together by ripping one apart. A zipper, for instance, can be one of the greatest challenges for one just learning, yet once you master the art it’s so easy. Just rip one out (maybe several), just to save the fabric for some of your learning the sewing world.

Garage sales are the best and least expensive sources of fabric — fabrics of all kinds for throw pillows, table runners and napkins as you learn to sew.

Always remember that sewing machines do not have to be brand new. In fact, I myself think some of those older machines with metal gears (instead of plastic) are much better. My machine, a Singer, has a slant needle and does zig-zag and many other stitches. It’s still purring right along and is now about 50 years old.

Now with tight budgets machines at garage sales are snapped right up. Ask if you can try it out and if it runs easily and smoothly and sounds good, I’d say buy it. I know a great sewing machine repairman — very reasonable. Machines really need to be cleaned and oiled routinely. However, even that’s easy. You can learn to do it yourself.

Have a great new year now.

Bye, and God bless you and yours.

-Aunt Norie, P.O. Box 265, Tonganoxie 66806; auntnorie@att,net.