I have a love/hate relationship with my house. I love that it has plenty of storage locations, but I hate that it has plenty of storage locations. Is it just me? Am I the only person who excels at hiding stuff? Normally so well that I can’t find it again. That bad habit of “putting it in a safe place” led to my latest dilemma.
I crocheted a face mask. Well, part of one. It didn’t take too long to figure out that they would be too thick, so I switched to thinner yarn. Nope. I’m a super-fast crocheter, but by the time I would get enough masks crocheted, wearing one would be a thing of the past. Of course, I started that a few weeks ago, and there’s no end in sight for our battle with this particularly nasty virus, so I might have plenty of time. But I’m too impatient for that when I have a somewhat perfectly good sewing machine and material in my craft room. So, I went to plan B. Sewing masks.
It’s been a while since I used my sewing machine. A while as in ten or fifteen years. I spent a few minutes looking at it, trying to remember how to thread it. Nope. Couldn’t do it. One of the things I never liked about that Singer machine is it’s complicated. Or I’m stupid. (Probably the former.) And I always had a “thread tension” problem when I used it, so I really wasn’t looking forward to sewing masks, but I was determined to do so. All I needed was the instruction manual.
I first looked in the obvious location, the files I keep in the room. Nope. From there, I went to every other location in the craft room. Which includes a bazillion plastic boxes in a walk-in closet and a dozen storage cabinets. Nope. While sitting there looking at the machine trying to decide if I could figure out how to thread it without the manual, it dawned on me the power cord and foot controller were also missing. One would thing I’d have noticed that a few hours before when I started looking for the manual, but…nope.
Since I hadn’t run across the controller or cord while looking for the manual, I broadened my search to include the entire house. Just FYI, there is no house in America with as many storage closets/rooms/shelves as in our house. And I looked in all of them. Well, I’m pretty sure I didn’t look in one of them, which would be the one that has the cord/controller/manual.
Now, we’re at plan C. Order a new machine. Yes, I know I could just keep looking because eventually I’d find them, but it was so much easier to click a link and sit back and wait for it to come in. I guess I had my head so firmly up my butt at that point in time, that I didn’t realize I ordered a sewing/embroidery machine until I took it out of the box. I think I just saw the word “Brother” which is my preferred brand for sewing machines, saw it had great reviews, and I could get it within a week or two, so I clicked on the “Heck, yes, I want this sewing machine” button.
It finally came in. With a foot controller, a power cord, and a manual. The manual was slightly smaller than War and Peace, but it was there. The machine threading section was about three pages long, which should tell you something. But! Brother is a very smart manufacturer of sewing machines, because it has arrows and numbers on the machine, so even if I lose the manual a few years from now, I’ll still be able to thread the machine.
I was able to make about thirty masks before I ran out of elastic. Which, btw, is pretty much as scarce as toilet paper, so it’s not just me sewing cloth masks. And now I’m in waiting-for-the-elastic to come in mode. While I’ve been waiting, I’m cutting up material, ordering more material, and pre-sewing what I can. It’s a good thing the government sent us a stimulus check, because I’ve pretty much spent it on face mask making supplies.
I know why I can’t find the manual/cord/controller for the Singer. God knows I hate that machine, and He’s smart enough to know that if I had to keep using it to make masks for all my family/friends/anyone who needs it, I’d stop after about two. So, He hid it from me. And now I have a sewing machine I love and can make about a bazillion masks. Well, when I get more elastic, I can, but it’s on the way. I’m pretty sure that when I finish this project, the manual will be laying somewhere in plain open sight, probably with the foot controller and power cord on top of it and will make a great donation to Goodwill when they reopen for donations. Hopefully someone will buy it who can figure out the thread tension issue, because I never could.