Sewing Machine Woes

 Last week I finished machine quilting all those quilts posted the past couple weeks.  After each quilt I sewed the binding with my Bernina and the walking foot.  I always use the walking foot for binding because then you don't get the stretch marks, I hate stretch marks especially on my clothes and quilt bindings and thighs.  Anyway the Bernina was making a lot of noise to the point where I was thinking about a new machine.    I went into the shop with the pretense of just getting some thread,  I had to linger over the machines.  Hubby Dear the Scottsman suggested I have it looked it after he saw the sale tags.   So another trip to Sioux Falls this time with my machine which I left for 11 long days.........they found a needle fragment in  the bobbin casing.  In the mean time I sewed the final binding on the last quilt with my old Elna SU which I have had for 40 years almost to the day.  I bought it at the South Dakota State Fair in 1977 the year before we got married because I knew he would never let me spend that much money on a sewing machine.  I think she was about $600. She has had a squeak but the squeak has turned into a screech like brakes on a car in need of replacing.  I'm taking her down to Sioux Falls when I pick up the Bernina.  I was without a sewing machine over the weekend so I couldn't do any piecing and my pile of quilts was all quilted so I couldn't machine quilt.  Then I thought go get Mom's old Elna super it's only been sitting the last 15 years fortunately it was under a dust cover.  She groaned at first so I oiled the red dots then I took apart the bobbin case lint was packed in like felt and I oiled it a little more to loosen up her joints and gears.  She's five years older than mine and I don't think my mother had her serviced as often as I did.  She's not purring like a kitten but she works and she is going to go to the shop too for a tune up just in case mine is past repair.  In the words of John Wayne in True Grit when he was eulogizing his dying horse "She never gave me a reason to cuss."  --Ann--