In Stitches

Today

Much as I love being down at the flat, occasionally time hangs a little heavy. We don't want to spend all our time visiting relatives and, although eating out is lovely, it's also expensive and fattening. So there are dull or rainy days and long evenings to fill.

The flat is our 2nd home, rather than just a holiday venue and we want to be able to do at least some of the things we do at home. To that end Paul brought down a selection of bits and pieces and has been happily creating models for his railway, sitting at one of the trestles in the veranda.

"I could get myself another sewing machine and use the other trestle and make handbags etc", I said. After some Internet browsing, looking at machines that cost £200 and are inferior to mine, I had a brainwave. My machine only weighs about 7k - I can simply bring it down each time we visit for more than a week or! Simple!

In My Day

Like many others of my generation, I learnt to use a sewing machine on my mother's electrified Singer sewing machine. It was gloriously ornate in black with gold scrolls, gloriously slow, and given to temper tantrums involving tension.

I was given my first very own machine as a 21st birthday gift. It was a creme de la creme machine - an elegant Necchi. Daddy was immensely pleased that the shopkeeper threw in the carrying case for nothing in return for cash, although I can't imagine how I would have coped without the case. The whole thing cost £70.

For its time the machine was unusually light to carry and very versatile. Each term I travelled from London to Worthing by train carrying my case, my sewing machine and wooden sewing box (in later years I also carried a basket containing my cat Ariadne), for use on my costume design and needlework training.

That sewing machine went everywhere with me. I remember a customer at Stefan's Bridge Club in London, who'd fallen on hard times, whose entire wardrobe I altered to suit modern styles (and, it must be said, her altered shape) using the Necchi. She paid me very good money indeed.

I made elaborate costumes, curtains, wedding dresses, clothes for myself, countless outfits for the girls, gifts for all the family, even, after some pressure, a hideous choir outfit for Beatrice. The machine paid for itself again and again.

How I kept it going I don't know, Necchi having long since gone out of business. Eventually, about seven years ago I thought it was about time for a new machine, so I bought a new Elna and gave the Necchi to Becky who never got it working. Still, thirty-five years' hard use isn't bad.

I still think of that Necchi with nostalgia, though it must be said that I really like the automatic buttonhole feature on my new one!