That's it!! My forty year old friendship with my sewing machine has officially been terminated.
HeeHoo purchased it when our youngest child was officially declared 'on the way'! My previous sewing machine had been left to me by my Auntie Poppy, who was born in an ox wagon en route from the Cape!
Aunt Poppy had a hand operated Singer, and when Uncle George purchased an electric one, she was totally dismayed. She had never learned to drive a car, and this 'man' was inciting her to learn to drive a sewing machine!!! She would clandestinely keep the two machines in tandem on the old oak dresser (which had also come in the ox wagon), and when uncle George walked in from the mine, she would swiftly move all attention from the hand operated Singer to the brand new Elna!!
And so when she died, I inherited the hardly used Elna. 'Emma the Elna' stood me in good stead with my two older children and I was reluctant to change over to this complicated, computerised Bernina with a hundred stitches, button hole capability, overlocking, and many other exciting functions I knew I would never use!!
'Sabrina' as she was tenderly named, sewed valiantly for almost half a century, she sewed red and whited spotted curtains for the baby room, she sewed white voile for the bassinet. She sewed preggy dresses for yours truly, nighties for the infant (yes there were no baby grows in those days).
Little girl dresses were churned out, red gingham, broderie anglaise, even velvet with lace collars, and I went on to use the very same patterns for my Grand Daughter forty years later!!
But then Sabrina started to become recalcitrant!! Her globe died and I was unable to find a spare, she started to stammer and stutter and caused me to use a a lot of expletives as I kept having to re-thread the needle, which had an eye the size of a molecule!!
Dragging this monster down to the only sewing machine mechanic left in Bulawayo was a mission in itself, as said mechanic looked as though he had
also arrived in an ox wagon! Several visits later Sabrina was brought home in disgrace. She would sew, but only at her pace and in her direction.
Now there is a perfect good tailor a block away at the Squash Courts, so why am I having to deal with this Bernina Sabrina when she is being so ornery
But I am terrified that HeeHoo finds out and buys me a new one, so please don't tell him whatever you do!!