Slightly Satanic Sewing

Last week I had the thrill of taking a spontaneous vacation. This never happens! But the world came together in several different ways to make a last-minute trip possible. The parents had bought a new house in the mountains I was dying to see, the plane tickets were cheap, the friends in San Francisco were willing to put me up for a couple nights en route, the husband was willing to take off some work, and my work was willing to let me sneak off for a couple of days, allowing me to effectively take off the entire week of Thanksgiving. Hallelujah!

While in San Francisco, I stayed with my dearest of dear old friends Megan. One night while lounging around her apartment, she told me that she had her great grandmothers old sewing machine. I immediately insisted that we pull it out and have a looksie! Old sewing machines are so much fun. I love that no matter how old the machine is, there's a good chance that it will still work...the mechanics of new machines and old machines are fundamentally the same, and the old ones were really built to last. So as long as you can figure out how to thread the machine, chances are the old gal will make some nice straight stitches!

When Megan pulled out her machine, I did not at first notice its name--I was too busy trying to figure out where the thread spool goes. Megan asked me to tell her the name of the machine so that she could look it up on the internet, and when I said it aloud I kind of couldn't believe me ears: The Charger 666? What the? Isn't that, like, the number of the beast or something?

We had a gooood long laugh about her satanic sewing machine, and couldn't help but wonder why oh why Brother would have picked that name for this model. I mean, hasn't "666" always been the devil's number? Or was "666" not considered satanic until the '80s or something?

After awhile, we figured out that a piece of the machine that holds the thread spool had broken off the back, so no sewing for us. (She's gonna super glue the piece back in place and see if that will work.) So at that point, we moved on from the Charger 666 and started rummaging through her great grandmother's vintage sewing supplies, which were a treasure trove of vintage notions. I was stopped in my tracks when I saw a little doo-dad called The Witch. (Something spoooooky was going on with this sewing kit, we must assume!)

The Witch, as we learned, is an old-timey needle threader. This one looks to be from about the '40s or '50s and was produced in "East Germany." I was having quite a time trying to figure out how it works until our friend Emma came along and solved the mystery. To see how it works, watch this video we made! It's very professional looking, I know.

Isn't The Witch super cool? I want one of my very own!! I actually hate threading needles, so if I were doing a big embroidery or hand-sewing project, I would absolutely invest in a Witch, which would make me feel less murderous each time I ran out of thread.

Anyway, if  you've ever wondered what old girlfriends do when they visit each other, now you know. They go through their old stuff and try to figure out why they have it and how it works, and then they  make crappy videos about their discoveries. Hope you enjoyed!