How to Sew Like Your Great-Grandmother

Well, there's really only one way to sew like your Great-Grandmother and that's to break out her sewing machine from the mid-1930s. And if you're me and you need to sew something, then it's pretty much your only option. Enter, my fabulous, indestructible Singer sewing machine:

See the red cloth hanging on the chair? That's the couch cushion that ripped itself (surely it wasn't anything I did...) off it's zipper. I finally had the time and motivation to fix it. The fun thing about my sewing machine (I mean, other than the fact its 80 years old) is that it's dead simple. It only sews one type of stitch and it only goes forward and backward. No waaay I can screw this up. And if I do, luckily I have the original manual to help me sort it out.

I also have a box full of different "feet" which claim to do miraculous things like zippers and buttons! Ooh, aah, you people with your electronic sewing machines that hook up to your computer and embroider and such... I know you're jealous. Finally, my mom also passed along her pair of beautiful stork scissors from Germany.

I love the decorative gold painting around the base of the sewing machine and I especially love that it's been worn away by four generations of women in my family.