Say goodbye, Daisy

Sometimes we hang onto stuff because it’s stuff. Sometimes we hang on for the memories.

My mother had a huge, heavy, solid state steel Singer Touch & Sew when I was a kid. The kind you see advertised in Facebook Marketplace as vintage for free, or, at most, for $50.00. It folded into its own sewing desk, something I was always about. The machine was so heavy I was certain it would break the hinges that held it in place and fall through the bottom onto the living room floor.

My mom sewed all my clothes – jumpers in pretty calicos and matching solid, pastel blouses with balloon sleeves and peter pan collars, a denim blue jumpsuit I loved, matching red and black plaid taffeta dresses for me and my younger sister when she was born. I would sit on the living room floor when she sat at the Singer, listening to the machine whirring and wishing I could have a turn. I so wanted to learn how to sew! (pun intended).

I treasured those clothes. They demonstrated my mother’s love for me. I was so important important to her, she MADE something for me, rather than just go buy it in the store. Even when I learned, many years later, part of the reason she did that was because she and Dad didn’t have much money and couldn’t afford clothes at the store, that feeling of being loved, seen, important to someone, stuck.

I wanted my own kids, when I had them, to have that. I wanted them to feel that way. So, 6 months after my wedding, 2 months before my son was conceived, I went off in search of a sewing machine. I hadn’t sewn, or even touched a sewing machine, in over 20 years by then. I decided I would re-teach myself how to sew. I would be as good as my Mom was when my first kid was born.

Not quite. JR was conceived 2 months later. 6 months after that my belly didn’t let me get near the machine.

Immediately, I went looking for a Singer – my mother’s Singer: solid state steel body, top loading bobbin (Singer really was ahead of its time there), unfussy and purely mechanical. All I needed was what she’d had: a forward stich, backwards stitch, a zig zag, and a button hole. Also, a zipper foot.

For about a month I searched across department stores, fabric stores, and the internet. I found a Singer. It was not my mother’s. It was plastic. In fact, all the machines I found were plastic. When I slid my fingers across their throats I didn’t feel the reassuring heft of a steel frame. I felt – to me – cheap plastic. They were labeled “sewing machines” but really they were the toy machines my school girl friends and I played house with, just not bubble gum pink.

(Over the next decade, the quality of Singer machines did start to improve. Today they are some of the top rated casual sewer home machines out there.)

I started to get exasperated and set the idea aside. I would wait for the technology to catch up to my specifications. Kids were a long way off. I had time.

That was my mindset when, strolling through a cavernous JoAnn Fabrics at Palisades Mall in West Nyack New York to pick up scrapbooking supplies, I finally noticed the Husqvarna Viking Sewing Gallery, dead center of store – this was before I trained myself to hold my head up instead of staring at the ground when I walked – I had passed by a gazillion times.

Clearly my subconscious had noticed it. That must have been where I got the idea to start sewing again. My subconscious has never been good at communicating with my active conscious.

Wait, that’s awkward. My forward conscious?

I’ll look it up later. Moving on.

I stopped and stepped in. The space was bright, and organized. Sewing machines sat on tables and countertops. Their lights were on, pedals connected, inviting.

I looked around, promptly got overwhelmed, and turned my gaze immediately to the floor: dark beige industrial carpet, the same color as the cabinets and tables the machines sat on. Walked over to one of the tables where a white machine with red and blue accents sat.

Husqvarna Viking.

I had no idea who they were. Where sewing machines were concerned, I knew Singer, recognized Brother from their printers and computers, and had a passing familiarity with White from my previous sewing machine shopping forays.

I stood in front of one of the machines, noting the top drop in bobbin, the bright, clean light shining over the needle, presser foot, and throat plate. I ran my fingers across the throat and felt plastic covered solid state steel. I turned the handwheel and felt the heft as the needle moved up and back down.

I sat down, picked up the scrap material for testing the machines nearby, carefully set the presser foot down on the fabric and cautiously put my foot on the pedal. The machine whirred, moving the fabric smoothly and easily under my fingers. I touched the reverse button and the fabric moved in the opposite direction exactly the same way.

I had found my sewing machine.

Here’s a little known factoid about some (if you’ve met one of us, congratulations, you’ve met one of us. It’s called a spectrum for a reason) autistic people: we don’t need to be sold. If we’re standing there in front of you, we’ve already decided to buy whatever it is you’re selling. You just need to confirm a handful of facts, ring up the sale, and hand us the receipt.

After suffering awkwardly through the sales woman’s pitch and gathering from it what I needed to know about Husqvarna, Viking, the different types of machines and what they did, I matched the Husqvarna Viking Daisy 325 up to my needs – not too fancy but a step above absolute basic – paid for the machine, and picked up the big red and white box to carry it home.

And almost dropped it in the box. I did not expect the machine to weigh 25 pounds.

Perhaps for my self-preservation, I have forgotten how I managed to carry 25 pounds, plus packaging, of sewing machine down three escalators, through a mall, out to my car, and into my house 45 minutes later without dropping it.

Much, much later I learned that Husqvarna also makes heavy duty machinery, chainsaws (my husband the lumberjack CPA has one), and motorcycles. Viking is their sewing machine division. My Daisy, and the Rose I received as an anniversary gift three years later because I outgrew the Daisy rather quick, were manufactured in Sweden.

The first thing I made on the Daisy was a set of Harry Potter capes my (ex) husband and I wore to a Halloween party when I was 6 month pregnant. Fully lined, with the emblems for Gryffindor and Slytherin in …felt, I think? I forget how I did them, all I know is I didn’t buy them pre-made… appliqued on the front.

That was 23 years ago. A lot’s followed since: JR’s first Halloween costume, the Christmas tree skirt I just tucked away for another year, my first quilt. JR’s 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Halloween costumes, pillows, baby clothes, Christmas stockings, baby gifts in the form of quilts and crib sheets and even an entire bassinet set, complete with lining and ruffled skirt.

I set the Daisy aside for a few years. She mostly sat in a closet in the apartment I moved into after my divorce. She was a doorstop for my attic after I moved to Boston for a few years. After my husband built me my sewing desk, I found another attic doorstop and started using her for piecing quilts.

A couple years ago, the stitch selector knob started getting finicky. A few months ago, the feed dogs started refusing to come back up after they had been dropped. Last month the stitch selector knob began requiring a wrench to turn at all (I couldn’t find a replacement knob and it would cost more than the machine is worth to repair it, if it could be repaired).

Daisy’s sister Rose is no different. I made my first queen-sized bed quilt on my Husqvarna Viking Rose. I embroidered my son’s Christmas shirt and Easter vest on that machine before I lost the embroidery unit in an unfortunate overstuffed closet craft supply crash. I made my son Christmas pajamas on the Rose for 10 years. I sewed winter hats and skirts on her, too. Rosie, as I call her, and I sewed Caillou rag dolls and stuffed animals for my son, and made a ballet costume for my girlfriend’s toddler daughter. We sewed my best girlfriend into a bridesmaids dress once.

Last Christmas Rosie got a little agitated with me when I asked her to, quite last minute, sew a thick, fleece, stuffed Peppa Pig doll for my niece. Her final straw was – in retrospect I really shouldn’t have asked her to do this, it was probably a job for the Daisy, I mean she still has a perfectly good straight stitch – my son’s last quilt, which was actually a combination of 3 different quilts sewn together front to back. She still runs, so does Daisy Mae, but both are over 20 years old now, and showing their age. As much as I want them to last forever, they are starting to let go. Bobbins are jamming more often, thread is not staying threaded, tension isn’t staying.

I have newer machines. I picked a Baby Lock Jazz II with an extended throat for machine quilting a few months ago (I knew Rosie was never going to let me get away with machine quilting another king-size again and I have one of those ready to go). The Baby Lock does all the things – namely piecing and mending - the Daisy does with the added benefit of a 1 step button hole. I also have a new Juki computerized machine with all of the fancy stitches Rosie does, plus the ability to run the machine without the foot pedal and a built-in needle threader.

So why am I sitting here with a screw driver taking apart the Daisy to see if I can repair that stitch selector knob, and why did I just upgrade the light in the Rose to an LED and add an upright thread spool to help with the tension issues?

Nostalgia? Sentimental value? Fear the newer machines won’t be as good as my 2 constant companions?

My son turns 22 and graduates school this year. All of my memories of sewing for him, and with them a great many memories of his childhood, are attached to Daisy and Rose. So is my history. I learned to sew on Daisy. 2 years after spine surgery, I re-learned how to do so with less mobility on the Rose.

I also know Viking. I know Husqvarna. I associate Husqvarna Viking with “will always turn on and run perfectly” because that’s what Daisy and Rose have mostly always done. Will another brand – the Baby Lock or the Juki – still be with me in 20 years? If my son is all grown up and I have children to sew for, what memories will I make on them?

(I did not, when I bought the Baby Lock and the Juki buy another Viking(s) because the combination of features I wanted in a mechanical and computerized machine are not yet present in Viking’s current product line).

Would I feel differently if I were upgrading with another Viking?

Nope. I know I wouldn’t. It’s not what they are, it’s what they represent: my earlier self, my idealism, my son’s childhood. Kiddo is a grown ass man now. He’s off on his own life, creating memories that are his alone. I need to let him go. Somehow, hanging onto those flowers allows me to hang onto him.

Those machines are my touchstones.

I turn off the computer, pick up my trusty Daisy, and head upstairs. I grab her sister Rose, move the current Singer Touch & Sew from its attic doorstop position, and place my babies gently, firmly, in the garage sale pile for the spring.

It’s time.

I close the attic door and pick up the quilt on the Baby Lock. Time for some new memories.

—CMR 2022