Me and "My" Machine

Ok, let’s just put this out there: I am afraid of my sewing machine.

I say “my” sewing machine, as though I have some sort of ownership interest in it.  Which I don’t. I didn’t buy it, and I still don’t really know if I want it.  Mom is just short of relentless on urging me to embrace all the joys of machine quilting, and after one particular disaster piecing a quilt together, I finally cracked and let her send me a starter machine.  Nothing fancy, just the basics. But now that it is here, I am having serious second thoughts.

I come by my aversion to sewing machines honestly.  It began in that viral incubator for all childhood neuroses – junior high.  In my particular case, it was home economics and a less-than-patient instructor who could not possibly understand how an honor roll student couldn’t thread a simple sewing machine.  She would stare at me with a strange mix of exasperation and astonishment, marveling at my ability to turn a simple bobbin into a giant nest of snarled thread, exploding out from the bottom of the machine.  In her defense, I really did create new and innovative ways to destroy one sewing project after another. Still, I challenge any of you to turn 6 pieces of raggedy old felt into a pillow the shape of a radio. Send pictures, please.

Having gladly left the saga of home ec behind me, I am now a 31-year-old woman who can’t work a sewing machine but loves quilting. You can see my dilemma. I started quilting by learning crazy quilting, entirely by hand.  There were no patterns to follow, no corners to match, nothing to constrain my imagination or test my limited sewing skills.  After attempting a slew of crafts in my late 20s – scrapbooking, crochet, one disastrous day of decoupage – I had finally found the hobby that fit me.  So I worked on the crazy quilt (still a UFO – unfinished object), put together an adorable Christmas wall hanging, and made a handy little tote bag…all by hand. Then came the wedding quilt.