Sewing Parts Online Dot-com
A year or more ago, I inherited a very old sewing machine that once belonged to my husband’s grandmother’s friend, Rina.
I never met my husband’s grandmother or Rina, though I do know Rina was famous for frequently rating her overall health on a scale of one to ten—ten being the worst—and once, when feeling particularly ill, reported she was at “about a twelve.” Announcing you are “at about a twelve” in a crackling voice and vaguely Long Island accent is how my family and I now tell each other something sucks, that we are sick, or are having a bad day. This, and the sewing machine, is Rina’s legacy.
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Because Rina’s sewing machine is old and has already been passed down once, to my husband’s parents, it is missing some parts. Also, because it is old, those parts are no longer readily available in stores. That’s how I happened upon sewing parts online dot-com.
I got machine oil, which the machine desperately needed. I got more bobbins because I couldn’t figure out what size bobbin it took. I got needles. I needed a zipper foot and, recently, a walking foot. Some of these things are things I didn’t even know existed before I acquired Rina’s sewing machine, but I am learning. All of them are, according to sewing parts online dot-com, guaranteed to work with the specific make and model of my, neé Rina’s, machine. This was reassuring and, so far, has proven true.
Still, being equipped with all the right tools for the job does not always make one good at that job. Sewing stuff is one craft in which, for me, it is hard to tell if there is something going wrong until it is done, at which point I hopefully have a slightly fucked up but passable item. Maybe as I get better, I will be able to anticipate things better and have a better sense of how things come together.
I like it, though, as a reminder that, while so many things are so effortlessly available to us—such as everything on sewing parts online dot-com—it takes an enormous amount of labor to make an item. The dual siren songs of consumption and convenience are always calling us to shore, which is full of two-dollar shirts from Shein.
But I am trying to be more deliberate about the things I have in my life. What I make is imbued with the value of the labor I put into it. Repairing things makes me feel like I can reimagine the value of what I thought was broken. I am proud of my sock darns and chair cushion that, upon closer inspection, is a little bit messy. They’re mine.
Same goes for my sewing machine. There are many newer, nicer ones out there—but I’ve liked taking care of this old thing, which works as well as you could want, really.
Thanks for it, Rina. I hope you’re at a one, wherever you are.