My Sewing Machine and Me

My Grandmother Hansen

When I was a tiny toddler, I tried to use my mother’s sewing machine and drove a needle through my finger. Just as when Sleeping Beauty pricked her finger on the spinning wheel and fell asleep, I think that incident made me love to sew.

When I was 12 years old, I went to visit my paternal grandmother in Southern Utah for a few weeks. She allowed me to pick her raspberries, showed me how to make pea soup, and taught me to do genealogy and family history. But most of all she taught me to sew.

Grandmother Hansen had been a dressmaker in her youth, and was an accomplished seamstress. Her history tells how her husband sold one of his horses to buy her a treadle sewing machine, so that she could continue her dressmaking business.

I remember that first sewing project that we did together—we made a green chartreuse Vogue-patterned blouse. How thrilled I was to make it, and long after my visit to my grandmother, I continued to sew! I took sewing in 4-H (who except us old people even know what 4-H is). I took every sewing class I could in school. As my mother’s health failed when I was in high school, I sewed dresses for her.

When I first married, I insisted on getting a sewing machine--how could I live without one. I saw an ad in the newspaper for new White sewing machines, and I bought one. It lasted for over 20 years. I once had to replace a foot pedal that had frayed through. It should have been an easy fix, except we were living in Northern Italy at the time, and I carried that foot pedal to all the open air markets trying to find a replacement and I finally succeeded. I remember trying to explain in my poor Italian what a foot pedal was before I gave up and brought it along with me.

After my sturdy mechanical White sewing machine died, I bought an electronic Brothers sewing machine and loved it!!!!! Years later when it died and couldn’t be repaired, I splurged and bought a new Viking sewing machine, but I never really liked it. I eventually gave it to my daughter and bought another Brothers’ sewing machine which I love.

Years after my grandmother died, I was able to purchase Grandmother Hansen’s old treadle sewing

Grandmother's old Minnesota treadle sewing machine

machine. The aunt whom my grandmother had lived with when she died, died herself, so I was able to purchase the sewing machine from my cousin. I felt like it had come home to me because I was the only one Grandmother Hansen had personally taught to sew.

But I continued to sew quilts, to make my grandchildren clothes and coats, and to make costumes for my youngest son and my grandchildren. 

When we moved to the big island of Hawaii in 1978, we had to stay in a hotel until our household goods were brought by ship to the island. I recall that after a couple of weeks in the hotel, with my older children in school and an eight-month-old-baby my only company, I rented a sewing machine and went to town.

That incident convinced me that I couldn’t live without a sewing machine for extended periods of time so in 2010 when my husband and I moved to Los Angeles for ten months (so that he could receive a lung transplant) we brought only what we could get in our car. But I found room for my sewing machine. Stuck in a tiny studio apartment there awaiting his transplant, and afterwards waiting for him to heal, I had a great time sewing. Some lovely fabric stores were close by, and it was fun experimenting with their fashionable fabric.

In 1990 my husband who was retired from the US Army and I moved to Centerville, Utah with our family, but I worked full time. I recall that although I didn’t have time to sew as much as I would have liked, I ordered a set of sewing cards/patterns, getting one a month. As I would look through the cards with their wonderful sewing ideas, I dreamed that when I retired, I would make all the items in them.

My newest sewing machine

One evening after work I was sewing, and the sewing machine needle broke off in the palm of my hand. I couldn’t see the broken needle, but I could feel it. However, I was too busy to go to the doctor that night; instead I went to one of my granddaughter’s Young Women activities with her. After a sleepless night because of the pain, I went to the Emergency Room at 6:00 a.m., thinking they could easily pull the needle out and I would get to work on time. However, it was too deep to easily dig out, and the point was pressing on the nerve of my thumb, so they called a hand surgeon, who knocked me out and finally got the broken needle out. It didn’t change my love of sewing, though.

When I retired from work in 2009, I enjoyed sewing again, but not as much as I had expected to. I was enjoying doing all the crafts, reading, writing, and genealogy activities I hadn’t had time for during the previous 19 years! But I then began teaching my granddaughters to sew, which ignited my love of sewing.

Last year we remodeled our basement, and I made a home for my sewing machine and projects—a

My sewing & crafts room

sewing and craft room, which I previously had only dreamed of having. This past Christmas, my daughters, granddaughters and I made baby quilts for Project Linus, and other sewing projects to give away.

Of my two daughters, but only one of them enjoys sewing and making quilts as I do. However, I have taught two of my granddaughters to sew and one of my granddaughters who doesn’t live in our area is learning to sew.

Is the love of sewing inherited? No, but I think it is contagious, and some of my granddaughters have definitely caught the bug. Fortunately, they didn’t have to drive a sewing machine through their finger to catch the bug.