Sewing with mom

by Kim
(Phoenix, AZ, USA)

My earliest sewing memory is sitting on the floor next to my mother, who was sewing, making doll clothes on a toy sewing machine I'd gotten for Christmas. As I learned to sew on a real machine I was allowed to use my mother's Elna, the green one with cams. Wish I had that machine now. Anyway, fast forward a few years and I wanted to learn to make model airplanes with my brothers and my dad. Girls don't make model airplanes apparently because I didn't get to make airplanes. Instead my father bought me a Pfaff sewing machine. It weighed a ton! For years afterward my mother and I sewed side by side, or face to face, on folding card tables in the living room. My favorite school photo is of me wearing a cute outfit I'd made on the Pfaff, a long blouse and matching shorts.

When I married I bought a Singer stylist, trading in the supposed portable Pfaff. Wish I had kept that machine. I kept the Singer longer than the marriage. Years later I traded the Singer, which was in a beautiful desk cabinet, for a Viking #1. Again, wish I'd kept the Singer. Since then I've purchased two more Viking sewing machines and two Viking sergers, all from the same dealer. Funny thing, when I traded in the Singer, about 20 years after I bought it, I discovered that the Singer salesman who sold me the machine was now the Viking dealer!