Alas, Dear Elna You Served Me Well

My grandmother's sewing machine

I come from a long line of accomplished seamstresses.  While they did not make a living sewing for others, they clothed themselves and their children. They sewed for their homes when there was cloth or money for such extravagances.

I honestly don't believe my grandmother ever owned a "store bought" dress.  The only thing she made for me was the "sunbonnet girl" quilt that covered my childhood bed.  I would give anything to have that quilt.  When I was little I was afraid to sleep in my room by myself.  My mother would lay in bed with me and tell me to pick a girl.  I would select one of the squares;  Mother would tell me the story of the dress made for her out of the fabric.  I would keep selecting squares until I fell asleep.  My grandmother had made the quilt from dresses she had sewn for my mother when she was a child.

Like  her mother,  Mother was quite talented.  Each year before school started we would go to town and pick out cloth for my school wardrobe.  If I saw a dress or outfit in a store window or catalog, Mother would draw out the pattern on newspaper and make it for me.  She made most of my clothes while I was in high school and college.  I ask her to make my wedding dress and she did.   She stopped sewing after she made several maternity outfits for me.

I have to say, I really thought that particular creative gene had passed me.    Mother tried to teach me; sewing bored me.  My freshman year she would not sign off on my class schedule until I signed up for a home ec class.  I started a garment, but Mother finished it; I got an A.  I just could not learn to sew.  And, why should I want to when my mother sewed so well?

Well, Heather was born.  I started playing around on a little sewing machine Mother and Daddy gave me for Christmas one year (just in case I needed to repair something).  I found I actually  loved making little clothes.  

 

Once I started, I was obsessed (we've chatted about my obsessive personality).  I was at my sewing machine whenever I had free time.  If I was not sewing, I was smocking or working at the local fabric/smocking shop (to pay for my habit).   I pretty much taught myself to sew on the little machine that could only sew a straight stitch, and, with great effort, make a basic buttonhole. 

Many years later,  I was fortunate enough to purchase a brand new fancy computerized Elan sewing machine.  Let me tell you, it did everything.  My sewing went up several levels.  I bought my Elna in 1990.    

This past Saturday I took my machine in to  be repaired.  Something was wrong with the bobbin.  They told me it was probably the timing, and it could be repaired by servicing; they would call me if there was something else.  Well, today while browsing the bookstore I got the phone call.  There was, in fact, a crack in a part that can no longer be found.  I ask what I could do with the machine.  I ask if he would be interested in buying it for parts, or if he knew of someone who might.  He told me this machine had not been popular "in this part of the country".   I was so sad, and my first instinct was to become defensive, but instead told him I would pick it up later this week.

Alas, dear Elna you made me look really good!