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| My faithful Elna, which has admittedly seen better days |
At school I loved the sewing class. Who wanted to do cookery? One bite and it was all gone. No, sewing was for me. I made skirts which I sometimes sold on to my sister, a maxi skirt (shows my age) comes to mind. At home, I unpicked outrageous flares and turned them into more maxi skirts. Wow, I was recycling before I knew or cared what that meant! I was way ahead on that curve at least.
The first sewing machine that I owned, was given to me by a boyfriend. It was second hand and heavy. The only thing I really remember about it, was that it always has a slight smell of machine oil and burning, and whilst I could sew really fast, it wasn’t speed making that smell. Still I was happy to get it and sewed away, making my own clothes. Yet again, the old tension thing was a problem. I never could seem to get it quite right.
From there I bought myself a sewing machine, this time a Jones. My love affair with that machine lasted as long as it took to sew a few lines. Boy I hated that machine. Once again I was haunted by my old nemesis – tension!I then traded over to an Elna and at last, I started to feel at home. It was great. At that time my main interest was soft furnishings. Then I found the love of my life, no not my husband – quilting! By this time I was living in West Africa, and when this machine started to play up, poor Alan carried it to and from the UK as his hand luggage. By the way, this machine has lived all over the world, as I still have it as a back up.
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| My sewing machine fits me like a glove |
By the time I had moved to Japan, my quilting interest had well and truly morphed into ‘art’ quilting, and with that, came the desire to own a great machine. Luckily for me, a good friend had also done a lot of research on this, and when I visited her in the US, we went machine shopping for her. The result, a Husqavarna Designer II, the machine that I also ended up buying. This machine too has travelled the world, as I had it shipped to Japan from the UK. I have to say here and now, Alan falls below this too! This machine is the best thing ever and the best thing is –no more tension!!!!
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| Temari ball |
Having a bit of a suck it and see personality when it comes to arts and crafts, I have dabbled in quite a few in my time; counted cross-stitch, tapestry, temari balls, knitting (even I can’t keep a straight face with that one), fabric dying and painting, to name the needle based crafts that I can remember. Let’s not even trip down the path of the non needle based activities (enamelling, silver clay, washi paper boxes to name a few). Actually, the one way to get my tail wagging is to say, ‘Kim, would you like to try making…’.
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| Temari display |
The bottom line is, I just love creating. I don’t mind if I am not the best at it, as long as I have tried my very best.
Some of the things I make are of little actual interest to me - let's face it, nobody needs 100 cross stitch samplers (I don't actually have 100!). As my ‘Coven’ friends will quote me as constantly saying, ‘it’s all about the process’.
