A little Singer 20

We have not had the lovely weather that a lot of the country have had, so it was perhaps as well that I had decided to spend the day sewing. I do so little sewing now ,but it was nice to be stitching away again. What I was sewing will be revealed at a later date.

Watching the Sewing Bee on TV, seeing all the fabric in the warehouse on Harris and a little interchange I had with Cathaber this morning, all got me thinking about sewing. When I was a teenager, my friends and I made our own clothes. We had no choice, as clothes were so expensive to buy. We used our mothers' sewing machines, swapped patterns and spent a lot of time choosing fabrics. There were three large fabric shops in Bradford then.

Now we have the situation where clothes are so cheap that it is more expensive to make than it is to buy. It's not just fabric that is no longer readily available, but threads and patterns are all highly priced.

So how have we got to this. People no longer make their own clothes, because clothes are so cheap to buy. But then someone pays very dearly for this situation, as we have seen in Bangladesh this week.



The sewing machine I have blipped is one I have had for a long, long time. I have never used it and I don't recall anyone else using it. It must have come from my grandmother, as it is one of the original little machines, a Miniature Chain Stitch Singer 20, that were made around 1910, although I think this one was a slightly different version made in 1914, judging by the Instruction Book that is with it. It is in a beautiful wooden box and has an iron clamp to fix it to a table. Just for reference, the base is 7 inches by 4 inches. A lovely piece of engineering, made in cast iron. I need to give it a bit of a clean!! Perhaps I will try to get it stitching again. It looks as if it has been well used in the past.