My Mother joyfully listened to the Necci-Elna saleman give his spiel sometime in the late 50's. She was sold, the sewing machine was made of rugged steel, it came with various cams that produced dazzling stitch patterns and best of all there were free sewing lessons just perfect for the young lady with her (me). That was destined to never happen. Cost benefit ratio between clothing and material must have been fairly close as the machine was a couple of hundred dollars. The cloth went on sale from time to time and patterns did not cost the moon. So, Virginia began her life long affair with the machine. No one touched that machine. In fact if it looked like anything had been disturbed she would hide the knee pedal.
Therefore my first sewing machine experience was using Grandma Horn's treadle Singer. My project that year was making baby doll blankets for my little sisters. I got some sort of grade and those blankets went into toy history.
My next sewing experience was from Junior High at Parkview and my HomeEc project was to sew a dress. Mom bought the pattern and the material (blue cotton print). There was supposed to be a little fashion show at school when we were finished. I took the complete project home to show to Mom. She screamed and literally snatched it out of my hands, ripped out the seams and sewed it back together.
Mom put out a steady production of cotton shirts, shirt waist dresses for she and I etc. She routinely shortened Dad's work pants because one leg was an inch or so shorter on one side. When she got done, couldn't tell the difference. She never tackled blue jeans for some reason probably because they were already well made and Sears put them on sale from time to time as well.
The dress production ramped up considerably when the girls were born and they were subjected to trios of similar colored material and styles. There is a very cute picture of the three of them standing on the front steps at 9 Avery way for Carl and Robins wedding for which they wore darling little dresses.
Dresses were required wearing for school. Dress codes did not relax until the 80's, I think.
At any rate all of the sewing produced massive amounts of ironing. When ever I came home from school and saw the ironing basket I knew that my chore for that evening was to iron down to a certain colored towel. Mom would always prepare the clothes by sprinkling water on each item and rolling them up and stacking them in the basket. I learned how to properly iron a shirt; start with the collar and iron is from the back side. Then place the back placket doubled under to the front and iron the correct side out on that. Iron the button side inside out, iron the button hole side inside out. Turn everything right side out, iron the fronts, the back and hang it up on hanger. next!
Mom routinely handled all of this washing and ironing, cooking for a family of large proportions, keeping the house clean. Mowing the lawn, fixing stuff that broke, driving to shop and run errands AND the Berglund did not adopt home owned washing machines until well after I left home, so the clothes were washed in one of the laundromats. She was a very busy lady.
With the advent of polyester material, Mom was elated. The material was tough as iron, it sewed like dream, it washed like a dream. IT. DID. NOT, REQUIRE, IRONING! That cut down the ironing basket to darn near nothing.
She loved polyester so much that the girls came to detest each and everyone of the dresses which she made for them. In my youth, if I wanted new shoes I simply worked the sole of the shoe until the small metal arch support came out and I would mournfully show it to mom and we would go get me a new pair of shoes. Anything but red!
I don't know if or how the girls managed to lose/ trade/ damage any of those dresses but I would have relied on cigarette burns. At any rate they survived the high school years with complete hatred for anything polyester.
My first marriage was in 1970, the height of polyester. Mom and Helen each made highly colorful poly ester dresses. She also made my wedding dress, a simple satin sheath with a faux lace cover.
Mom kept tons of polyester scraps and made polyester quilts for each of us. I received a small quilt for Charlie when he was born and that same quilt eventually made it to my grandson, Anthony.
The thing is polyester wears like iron. When Mom died her household was divided up and I took home one of the old quilts. A couple of years ago I noted that the edges were getting frayed, the cotton backing was shredding. I asked sister, Gale if she would like it and she agreed.
I sat down last week and began picking out the seams with a seam ripper. I must say the things that have lasted the longest on this almost 50 year old quilt are the zigzag stitch and the small blue yarn ties. Of the several hundred cut off the quilt, there was only ONE loose tie. Not bad for a jillion washings and 50 years running.
The quilt is sitting on the couch waiting to be mailed. It needs to be tossed into the dryer to hopefully blow off the loosely attached threads. I did notice that the fabric itself has held up well there are hanging pulled out threads and lots of pilling. I would just either shave the thing or turn it inside out if turned back into a quilt, or pillows, or a curtain. If returned to quilt status, I would just sew it to a nice fluffy duvet, turn it right out and sew the end shut. Voila!!
Last task, turn an Amazon box inside out, tape it sturdily, stuff in the quilt and send on it's merry way. Bon Voyage. Buh bye!
Oh wait, I have to schlepp this to the Post Office. Drat!
One last thing, after Mom died the old Necci-Elna went home with Phil and Jody. The machine eventually went to a deserving young family. Hope they get a lot of use from the old girl, it had a lot of milage.
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