I grew up around sewing machines. My first sewing machine, which I still have and use, was a 1976 Singer. It is built like a rock (and weighs about as much as one), and 31 years later still compares favorably against most modern home sewing machines. I've since added a serger (a.k.a. over-locker) to my toolkit, and have been fantasizing about a cover stitcher. But yesterday, when I went with my mother to help her pick out a new sewing machine, I was utterly charmed by a little chain stitcher.The sewing machine shop, located in the heart of San José, Costa Rica, was the largest I've ever seen. It eclipsed the home sewing machine shops around the suburbs of Melbourne, where I live, as well as the one in Boulder, where I used to live. It even made the industrial sewing machine shop I once visited in Detroit look twinky. This place was big, and it was filled with table after table of new and used sewing machines, over-lockers, cover stitchers, and display cases filled with specialized feet and feeders for the various machines. The entrance was dominated by industrial sewing machines (Costa Rica has a healthy textile industry) and the interior was overwhelmed by domestic machines, some of which came with tables fitted with working foot pedals for people living with limited access to power (when was the last time you saw one of those for sale in the US - did it belong to your grandmother, or was it during the preparations for Y2K?). Upstairs, where you could go if you were escorted by one of the sales people, were two more racks filled with used sewing machines.
Only minutes after entering the store we noticed a virtual duplicate of my 1976 Singer sewing machine in a locked case along one wall, sitting next to a variety of other machines of similar vintage. It turns out the machine hasn't worked for a long time, but the shop agreed to fix it up and sell it to us for the very agreeable price of about $80. We never even looked at the new machines.
What really caught my eye, though, were the rows of small black hand cranked, cast iron chain stitchers. These machines were obviously sold by the store for ornamental purposes, but they were built like tanks, and I suspect they may be for general consumption in China, where they were probably built. The first man we spoke to in the shop said they couldn't sew. Though this was definitely true of some of the little machines, I wasn't convinced we couldn't make one of them work.
Not one of them was threaded, so I guessed where the thread would sit and how to get it to the needle. I also struggled with how the bobbin worked, until I looked closely at the mechanism under the plate and realized that the machine would do a chain stitch with only one thread. I was enchanted by the simplicity of it and determined to get one working. With the help of one of the shop assistants, one of the mechanics, and a new needle, we got the second machine we tried to sew. So now I am the proud owner of a little hand crank chain stitcher. It will probably sit on display in the living room, but when the year 2028 bug hits, I'll be ready.
