Sewer Rat.

The Kenmore is officially in service!

Nic invited me to sew at his studio last Friday. There, I would have ample space to work on my project and gain access to his sewing supplies as I don’t have anything beyond a sewing machine, black thread, and scissors yet. Unbeknownst to me, I was about to subject myself to a curious blend of fragrances as his studio is nearby a brewery, coffee roastery, ice creamery (think homemade waffle cones), and a perfumery. The essence of independent businesses was less pronounced in the studio itself. That, or my nose got so confused by all the smells that my brain eventually cancelled them all out.

Before I could get sewing, I needed to do some maintenance. The thought of putting a 47-year-old machine to work before cleaning and lubricating it made me uneasy. Trauma from years of servicing bikes with thirsty chains and gunked-up drivetrains, I suppose.

The manual included instruction and diagrams on how to clean and oil the machine. Unfortunately, I forgot to include the manual when I packed up the machine for Nic’s studio. An online search for this manual in PDF format brought up two results, both of which were paid downloads. Now I want to scan my manual and put it online for FREE as a fuck you to those two Etsy sellers.

Nic ended up driving me home so that I could retrieve the manual. What a gentleman.

I cleaned the machine by dusting the machinery with a paintbrush, living out my paleontologist fantasies. In the process, I uncovered a tiny dead insect fused to the motor.

Certainly, this guy is as prehistoric as the mosquito encased in amber at the beginning of Jurassic Park!

I sent Jordi a photo of the dead bug and asked him to carbon date it. Although not a paleontologist, once upon a time, Jordi donned a knockoff Tilley hat and went around digging square holes in the name of archaeology. Same difference.

“Not that old. Like, less than a year.”

Disappointed, I wiped the bug off the motor, for its young DNA was of no use to me. What was I gonna do? Clone my oma?

With the sewing machine debugged, cleaned, and oiled, learning to thread it was the next step. After a few minutes of squinting at the illustrations in the manual, it became apparent that old sewing machines differ from modern sewing machines in that RTFM is essential. Nobody reads manuals anymore, and because of this, modern sewing machines have become idiot-proof. Or, to use a more PC term, user-friendly.

This is where my bicycle repair experience came in handy. At work, I often must fight that aversion to manuals wont to Millennials.

My first project on the Kenmore was drapes for my front door. Cute pattern on the inside and blackout fabric on the outside. Seemed simple enough.

If you’ve seen the Will Ferrell movie Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, you might remember the scene where Sigrid wakes up to find that The Lion of Love, Lemtov, braided her hair while she was asleep.

“Wow. That’s quite good, actually. How long did that take you?”

“Six hours.”

Well, those drapes were my Fire Saga saga. They turned out “quite good, actually” but took about six hours to make!

The first 30 minutes was a ride on the struggle bus as the thread kept breaking, causing unnecessary perforation of the fabrics. Thanks to the advice of Nic’s employee, replacing the needle remedied this issue. The other five and a half hours? Getting two fabrics with different properties to line up was an endeavor itself. Cutting, measuring, ironing, marking, pinning, chatting, Googling, obambulating, prancersizing, and lolling also all added up.