Keeper!

Thursday, January 19, 2023

After years of disuse, I fired up my barely used sewing machine yesterday. Restarting it needed lots of time with high focus. I’ve never been one to sew, but when new the shiny machine offered a world of electronic features that supposedly enabled easy, creative sewing.

I tried using the electronics and sewing but became overwhelmed, and afterward, the machine sat unused. Recently, while having my home’s flooring replaced, I emptied each room of furnishings. Later, while deciding whether to refurbish my “sewing area” and realizing I’d misplaced or lost its instruction book, I almost tossed the machine.

But deciding forced me to consider the problem that I’m a short person. Often, I can’t reach high enough to replace or retrieve shelved items. And always my pants’ legs are too long. Unless cuffed they drag on the ground.

Too-long pants’ legs especially are problems on cold winter days. While caring for outside animals, I wear snow pants over sweats. My snow pants are kids’ sizes, but still too long and must be cuffed. The cuffs capture loose hay and dirt, that later fall onto my house floors. Through years, I’ve had to clean dropped hay and dirt.

I decided to place the sewing machine into its old space and ordered a replacement instruction book. I checked the internet site, “Ifixit”, for steps to hem snow pants. Its demonstration was more elaborate than I needed, but reassuring.         

Yesterday, I sat before my sewing machine with three pairs of snow pants and the replaced machine instructions. I allowed plenty of time to relearn: how to thread a bobbin, thread the upper machine, and how electronically to make it self-thread the needle. By late afternoon, I had adjusted the pants’ legs to a perfect length for me.

Afterwards, it seemed almost exciting, heading to the barn and anticipating no dirty cuffs. Later, it was grand, entering the house with pants’ legs as clean as a whistle.

Dear Friends: Electronic challenges aside, I’ve become reinspired. Diana