Yet another new sewing machine

Well, it's new to me!

I've acquired another  Singer 28K handcrank; her serial number dates her to the first half of 1908. She came from a rural car-boot sale via a friend, for the grand sum of £8.

Singer 28K, made in Kilbowie, Clydebank
Scotland, in the first half of 1908.

We put her on my dining room table, changed her needle, wound her bobbin on my ~1914 Jones Family CS (as the Singer's bobbin tyre is missing), threaded her up - and she sewed. Not quite perfectly yet; the tension mechanism needs a thorough cleaning, and the stitch length adjuster is jammed, but the application of plenty of WD 40, followed by a good dose of sewing machine oil in all orifices and wherever metal meets metal, will soon solve that problem, I have no doubt. 

Jones Family CS 'as supplied to HM Queen
Alexandra', with 'coffin top' case seen behind.

The lid to her accessories compartment is missing - I think it was a sliding lid, so it must have slid right off - and she has neither accessories nor cover - which I think would have been a 'coffin top' similar to that of my Jones Family CS, seen on the right here. The desirable bentwood cases came a bit later, I'm sure.

How many domestic machines of any type are still perfectly functional at 105 years old? There are literally thousands, probably millions, of century-old hand-crank and treadle sewing machines still doing useful, often vital, jobs all over the world. 

I wonder if the men and women who made these machines a century and more ago had any idea at all of the heritage they left us? I wish my old machines could talk! I'd love to know about some of the garments they made, the women who used them and the conditions in which they were used. Gas-light? Oil-lamps? Or did they push a table to the window and place the machine there when they needed to sew? 

I love my slick computerised machines and overlockers, make no mistake about that. They sew slick, quick and beautiful. They need judicious coaxing, caution in the fabric put through them, specialist servicing and a kind, considerate user. They also need a reliable electricity supply. 

My old machines produce a perfect straight stitch on any fabric that can fit under the presser foot, and are so relaxing to use - on short seams at least. They offer the ultimate in control, stitch by single stitch, which can be invaluable for some projects, and the torque on them is amazing. With a good quality new needle they will go through the thickest, toughest layers of fabric like a hot knife sliding through butter. They do all this on only a generous supply of sewing-machine oil and the muscles of a human's right arm. They do have a great thirst for oil! 

Most sewers, if they buy sewing machine oil at all (it must not be used on computerised machines), buy it in a wee little bottle which costs a couple of pounds for about 100 ml and lasts for years and years. I buy ten times as much - a litre - for less than a fiver and it lasts me about a year. They drink the stuff, I think! 

As long as I could get hold of lubricant, I could sew through the Zombie Apocalypse and the collapse of civilisation as we know it, with my old handcranks. Let's hope it never comes to that, though!

WORLD'S BIGGEST COFFEE MORNING

For McMillan Cancer Support.

Last Friday, 27th September, as most people will be aware, was the day chosen for 'the world's biggest coffee morning', raising funds for this very worthwhile charity. 

All over the UK, in towns, cities and villages, coffee (and tea!) was being brewed, cakes (and bacon butties!) were being served, and goodies and treats of all sorts were being sold, in homes, parish halls, schools and venues of all sorts in towns, cities and villages all over the country.

As a therapy radiographer who, back in the dawn of time, trained and qualified at one of the largest specialist cancer hospitals in Europe before taking further qualifications and then travelling all over the world,  I am all too well aware of the many and varied forms of help needed during a cancer patient's journey. 

So when I heard that the manageress of our village's social club was organising a coffee morning and planning to have stalls, I volunteered myself to have one.

I have a reasonably-large stock of bits and bobs which - for whatever reason - have not sold as well as I thought they would. I have to confess this is usually because I've been taking them to entirely the wrong venues, as when I took a stall at the Village Market in May, I sold lots and lots! 

The problem is that sometimes I can't resist making things that I want to make, without giving much thought as to what my target market at my usual venues want to buy, so it's hardly surprising that they don't sell,

Anyway, I packed up - and dragged a few hundred metres down the lane into the village - ten full aprons, ten half-aprons, half a dozen of those tube-like containers for storing your supermarket plastic bags, ten coathanger safes, ten strings of floral bunting and about four dozen lavender bags. I'd spent most of Thursday making, then filling, these lavender bags; the house smelled gorgeous and I was high and dozy on the fumes.

Half of the table after
customer attacks!

The photo on the right shows my table after it had been well and truly ravaged by hordes of old ladies, the vicar, the mayor of the Rural Borough, his daughter and an eccentric woman said to have pots of money. 

By 1.30pm all I had left was three full aprons, one 

lonely lavender bag and four strings of bunting. 

The organiser kissed me when I gave her all my takings, just keeping a fiver back as I'd had to buy the lavender. 

To tell you the truth, I was glad to 'get rid' of these items, especially to such a good cause. It has freed up space in my home, and in my imagination and creative flow.

Then at about 5pm, there was a knock at my front door. A woman could not get to the fund-raiser, but a friend had told her I had bunting for sale. She bought what was left, so that was another £20 to add to the total raised!

The bunting was cheap, being made by a quick-and-dirty method, as were the lavender bags. 

I'll do tutorials on them soon. 

Sometimes quick-and-dirty is best for both the seller and the buyer ... as long as it's a nicely and skilfully-done quick-and-dirty.

Some thoughts on the economics of home sewing

I've not been around very much lately. Too busy, but I've been thinking a lot, looking for answers to questions.

How expensive is cheap clothing?

On a forum I sometimes frequent, a poster stated a few weeks ago – apropos a discussion about what to buy and sell at craft fairs and hand-made markets -

I see really simple dresses in stores that are way too overpriced. People are always looking for clothes that are unique and affordable.

I was incandescent with rage at the sheer arrogance of this statement, but calmed down and decided that I should be more benevolent towards my fellow humans, and put her post down to mere (??) ignorance, so I responded in a more temperate manner than I actually felt, as follows:

Mass-produced clothing which is sold in shops is made, in the overwhelming majority of cases, by poor people in third-world countries being paid a few pounds a week, and whose workplaces seem not infrequently to fall down or burn up - or both! - with them trapped, sometimes even locked, inside. 

If the garments produced by these people are to be considered 'overpriced', why on earth would anyone imagine that a dress made individually by a skilled person in the first world would, should or could possibly be purchased for less money (which is what is usually meant by 'more affordable') than a dress which could well have been made by one of those poor, dreadfully-injured women still lying in a Bangladeshi hospital, or by a hungry child who should, by all rights, be at school or simply playing.

Whether we buy a £2 Primark t-shirt, or a £40 Zara t-shirt, can we say that either one is really overpriced?  If we were asked to pay the true cost of these garments in the coinage of life itself, it would be incalculable. 

Rana Plaza collapse, Dhaka,
April 2013 (rijans CC)

I find the thought of someone being forced to work in unsafe, unhealthy, even life-threatening conditions just so that we can casually buy cheap clothes to throw away, to be simply appalling. 

I KNOW it happens and yet I have still bought the jeans, the t-shirt. 

Why? 

Because I could. No other reason. Shame on me!

I'm what is most kindly described as 'in my senior years' now, and In my younger years, sewing was most certainly a money-saving activity. In the last quarter of a century, though, things have changed very much, and sewing your own garments is now considered, by many people, to be a vaguely eccentric hobby, and certainly not an economy. 

We in the wealthy West benefit from cheap labour in Third World countries, mainly in Asia. This labour is predicated upon cheap fossil fuels, global debt, central banks and a cavalier attitude to environmental damage and occupational safety, if indeed either of the two latter are acknowledged at all. 

What, then, is the real cost of these cheap garments - and, indeed, all the other items so dear to our consumerist lifestyle? 

Destruction and death (rijans CC)

The cost is life itself, human dignity and freedom, the environment we are leaving to our children and our grandchildren, and our own self-reliance and independence. 

Of course, there are large companies, multinationals even, who see that it is generally in everyone's best interests to ensure that their workers - whether a department manager in a UK business place  or a lowly-paid seamstress in Dhaka - are treated in a fair manner and work in safe conditions. These companies are usually members of the Ethical Trading Initiative, which is also associated with international trade union organisations and NGOs. 

An unexpected view down the road

We have exported much of our manufacturing capacity to the cheapest available producers.  

Losing this capacity, and the skill bank that accompanies it, may well not be sustainable in the long run, especially with carbon footprint questions increasingly rearing their heads. What will happen then? 

Let's look at this a bit differently; it can lead to an interesting journey.

Imagine you can't cook, and you don't have a kitchen in your house anyway, or any other facilities to cook, except maybe an electric kettle and some teabags. It doesn't really matter, though, as you have a nearby restaurant always open, willing and able to serve you with food you enjoy at a very reasonable price, at the times you wish to eat. This restaurant imports its dishes from far away, which is why it is able to sell them so cheaply, and as a result, everyone has sold, given away or thrown away all their cookery equipment and converted their kitchens into home theatres, saunas or guest bedrooms. There are similar restaurants in neighbouring villages and towns, which has resulted in all the local food shops closing and the little take-aways and fish and chip shops losing almost all of their business. Just a few still survive  here and there.

Now imagine that owing to some disagreement in which you have played no part whatsoever, the proprietors of all the restaurants suddenly decide that you and the other people aren't the sort of customers they want, and that they aren't going to cook the food you like to eat, so you have to go there at off-peak hours, eat food that disagrees with you or even take the left-overs, if you want to eat at all. You have no other option, as you can't cook, the food shops have long-since gone out of business and the take-aways and fish-and-chip shops are only open occasionally - the nearest one is ten miles away, anyway, and blisteringly expensive.

Is this type of scenario a risk when domestic capacity for other forms of manufacturing is lost? There is no longer any competitive lever, and it becomes the customers who are vulnerable and the producer who is king.

Although clothing nowadays is cheap - amazingly cheap - it's also very common for clothing to be ill-fitting and badly made. Most people ‘outsource’ their clothing to retailers, and don’t have any say in its design,  and no manufacturing capacity at all. 

Hence they don’t have a choice if they need an item of clothing - they have to take what retailers provide at a price they can afford. If all retailers provide a similar supply … well, that’s the way it is. 

The retailers force the factories to cut and cut their prices to the bone, so the garment workers wages are cut still further and their working hours increased. The garments sold by the retailer are even more badly made by workers with an even lower skill level. 

Thus the continuing economy of home sewing for those of us who are all or any of non-standard retail sizes, have no desire to wear 'fast fashion', who cannot afford designer originals but who have designer tastes, who want something 'different', who hate shopping, or who cannot easily shop, who are creative, who just like to use a machine, or - for that matter - any one of a heap of other reasons. I sew for several of the already-mentioned reasons, and another one not mentioned - I can access a wide range of fabric very cheaply!

I'll finish with a Victorian cartoon which gently mocks two fashionable young women who are clearly at the forefront of technology and all things modern.

Gertrude:  My dear Jessie, what on earth is that bicycle suit for?

Jessie: Why, to wear, of course!

Gertrude: But you haven't got a bicycle!

Jessie: No, but I have got a sewing machine!

Summertime, and the living is easy ...

... I love it, and can do without the ridiculous warnings of a 'dangerous heatwave'.

Although I know there are 'vulnerable' people out there, nothing more than common-sense is needed for anyone capable of getting out and about by themselves. 

I'll leave mothers to care for their squalling kids as best they can; keeping your, and their, cool is really not rocket science - it's done, and done very well I might point out, by people of all ethnicities, backgrounds and income-levels in countries as diverse as Australia, Argentina and Arabia. So don't tell me that 'it's the heat!; when your obnoxious brat screams or spews  - especially when there are half a dozen other kids in the same space, none of whom are screaming or spewing like yours. The difference is that those kid's mothers have functional brain cells which they haven't destroyed for the sake of a short-lived high ...

It's not 'the heat', it's your own damned laziness and/or lack of common sense.

It appears that 'the elderly' are especially at risk. I'm elderly myself, and I am probably at less risk than most other people my age in the UK - and many far younger people - because I am not daft.

I was on the bus yesterday and a woman about my age looked really quite ill. She was fanning herself frantically in an effort to keep cool, and was mildly relieved when some good-hearted soul offered her an ice-cold bottle of water - still sealed - from her bag. She held it against her face and neck. The good-hearted soul urged her to drink it, but the hot woman refused saying she wasn't thirsty. The good-hearted soul told her, quite correctly, that didn't matter that she wasn't thirsty, she should stop frantically fanning herself, relax her body and sip the ice-cold water slowly.

Misery-guts me jumped in at this point, and said that it would also help if the hot woman removed her jacket and headscarf which were clearly heavy and tight, so that the slightly-cooler air flowing through the windows and door - which the helpful driver had opened by this point - could be of some assistance. 

The hot woman had reached her stop, and got off - fortunately, we saw, into a shady area, with someone waiting to meet her - and the bus continued on its way. The good-hearted soul and I chatted. I pointed out that the hot lady had probably had on a bra and knickers, maybe a vest and a pantie-girdle 'for support'. She certainly had on a blouse tucked into a medium-weight skirt, a pair of heavy-ish tights, sturdy shoes, a cardi, a jacket and a headscarf. It was 27deg C outside; hotter in the bus with no a/c. 
'All that underwear?' asked my new Pakistani friend in amazement.  She was well-covered with clothing, certainly - but it was all loose and light. Certainly no tights, cardis, or thermal undies!

Folks, if you see some old lady wearing a white acrylic cardi and American Tan tights sweltering in the heat, don't just think 'poor soul'. Be as rude as you like and TELL them to take off than hideous cardi, remove those dead fish tights, roll down the pointless girdle, wad up the thermal vest, rip off the fugly headscarf and drink some cold water even if they don't think they are thirsty - and STAY ALIVE! It's probably easier for me to be rude in this way, as I'm an old woman myself.

If worse comes to worse and she's your granny, and you just can't bring yourself to be rude like that, maybe you could tell her instead that she won't 'feel the benefit' of her thermal undies when the heatwave ends - as it will, all too soon. 

Tahe care and keep cool!

Blogging, selling, self-promotion ...

... it's difficult to really know what to write.

Here's one of the fabrics I mentioned in my last post - one of the fabrics I bought just because I like to look at it and to feel its texture. 

silver-grey pure silk- a photo cannot do it justice

It's a silver-grey pure silk - almost, but not quite, of taffeta crispness - with charcoal-grey silk embroidery. I'm very, very tempted to buy more to make a Victorian dress. Not that I have anywhere I could wear such a thing, but I would make it my business to find somewhere, once I had my lovely outfit!

Now that was easy to write.

Being English, I find it immensely difficult to blow my own trumpet. Self-promotion seems, somehow, very wrong. I know I'm supposed to be proud of what I do well - I am - and not afraid to say so - that's the hard bit. It's boasting. 

I know that making lovely things is my job, but marketing them is an important part of my job, too. After all, if I want to carry on making things I love, I need to sell some of the things I've made. I've read the books and visited the websites; I know what I should be doing - according to the marketing gurus, anyway - but I just can't. More, I won't. I don't see why I should do anything which really creeps me out. I loathe and despise the 'hard sell'. I very deliberately turn my back on pushy salespeople and walk away from them while they're still talking. If they persist after that, I can get very unpleasant indeed, should I need to. 

SO, maybe that explains to you why I've been finding it a bit awkward and uncomfortable even to blog about what I've been making.

It strikes me that it would be all too easy to write an endless advert - and what's the point of that, other than to annoy people?

What I'd like to do is natter on about some of the things I've made, offer a few simple tutorials and know that a few people read my blog because they find it vaguely interesting. What do you think?

Summer at last!

Isn't it simply lovely to have sun? Let's hope we get a lot more of it! Sunshine makes so many aspects of life easier and more pleasant - laundry being one of them.

Washability is important for almost all my products. 

So in the recent good weather, I've spent time washing fabrics I'd bought earlier in the year, and hanging them out to dry in the sunshine - I won't sell anything that can't be washed (except for things like lavender bags and wheaty warmers, of course, but even they get their base fabrics washed before making-up, to remove any fillers or finishes) and the best way to ensure there'll be no disasters in the laundry area is to do-it-myself first. 

Then I can tell prospective customers with total confidence 'Yes, it'll wash' and I know that any future shrinkage or colour loss has been minimised, too. Who wants to buy, for example, an apron that they can't just fling in the wash, hang out on the line and then run an iron over? No-one, that's who!

Pretty blues

Cars, stars, boats.

I love how my fabrics look on the line!

Cat print and herbs

I'm very, very lucky where I live in some of the loveliest countryside in England, yet  a bus-ride or two will transport me to several fabric-lover's heavens where I have no problems getting gorgeous, quality cottons - and other fabrics - at breathtakingly reasonable prices. 

Piggies and a farm

Retro florals

So I can make these pretty aprons - they bring colour to my garden before the flowers start to bloom - and lots of other lovely, lovely things!

Pinnies on the line

I have to ask - is there anyone else who buys fabric just to look at? I understand being reluctant to cut into beautiful  fabric - especially when it's expensive -  for fear of making a mistake, but I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about just buying it because you love it - like you might buy a picture for the wall, I suppose.

Here's one I bought with no intention of making anything at all from it. I have another one which I love to just look at, and one I like to stroke, which I'll post next time.

How could anyone not love this?

Fair success at the Market

You never can tell when you'll sell.

My village is a busy little place in the summer. It's busy in the winter, too, but it's a less-open, less public sort of busy-ness.

Spring Bank Holiday weekend marks the beginning of our outdoor, summer 'busy-ness'. We have a Village Market, at which I was persuaded, against my better judgement (or so I thought at the time) to have a stall - only £5 for village residents, so I looked upon it as my contribution to the village amenity fund. I nearly couldn't be bothered to go, but the organiser knocked on my door the night before to check up on me, and threatened to come round at 8 in the morning, too, so I had to ...

I knew I wouldn't do well, as anyone and everyone local is welcome at the market - car booters, charities, businesses, organisations - as long as they're within a certain geographical area they're welcome to sell whatever they want. The Avon Ladies of every surrounding village were present - an entire tribe of them! - and a pickle manufacturer who rents a production unit up the road was there, as was the Farmhouse Jam lady who really does work from her farmhouse. Not much call for hand-made domesticalia at premium prices, I thought.

So I'd made nothing special or new; as I've done very few fairs so far this year I merely dug out some unsold stock - half-a dozen cushions, half a dozen aprons, half a dozen strings of floral bunting, half a dozen strings of 'boy bunting' (pirates, cars and Manchester United - two of each) and two corset-clad dummies, one large and one small, whose main purpose is display and the attraction of customers from afar, not for selling. I'd not even been to the bank for a float, either, so I hurriedly altered all my prices to multiples of 5 - which made the cushions and aprons expensive and the bunting cheap. I really wasn't bothered, though. Why should I be? I just knew I wasn't going to sell anything much at all.

I trundled my trolley all of 100m down the road - and was passed by a swerving tractor, driven by a farming acquaintance whose eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw how my dummies were clad! - to the market, and found myself placed between the pickle man and a retro jewellery maker, opposite the nursery school's nearly-new soft toy stall, Help the Heroes and the Allotment Society.

Everything literally pegged-down on a windy day

Within three hours, standing there in the cold wind, I'd sold all the cushions, five out of the six aprons, all the boys bunting and half of the floral bunting. I also took orders for two more cushions (to match a pair already bought) and two more strings of boy's bunting. The dummies had to be put away under the table, as the wind was so strong it blew them right off. It wasn't a venue for corsets anyway, but let's be honest, there aren't that many outdoor venues which are!

There were plenty of buyers, including lots of British Asians - probably from the neighbouring East Lancashire towns - and the Allotment Society was doing a roaring trade with the Asian ladies buying boxes of bedding plants.  Here in this rural neck of the woods we are a surprisingly homogeneous bunch of white Anglo-Saxons and Celts, and see very few people from ethnic minorities, except for our bus drivers and my best friend Elena who is black South African and visits at least once a week,  so the Allotment Society members - every last one of them over the age of 85 it seems - looked a bit flustered as they were surrounded by billowing saris and dupattas, vying with the flowers for colour.

It wasn't supposed to rain until 2pm or so, but the first spots started coming down an hour earlier.  Ten minutes later, it was fairly pelting down, but by then I'd packed up everything but my table and was sheltering under the pickle man's gazebo. The pickle man very cruelly (to his son) and very kindly (to me) sent his son to unscrew and fold my table, and a few minutes later, the rain having lessened a little, I trundled up the road, far less burdened than when I'd trundled down it earlier in the day.