The Need for Speed? I Don't Think So!

I have a proper, traditional Pantry of which I am very fond. It has open shelves for tins and packets and jars, hooks for hanging bags of fresh vegetables, wide shelves for the largest stock pots and the gadgets that don't get used every day, plus a space for the recycling bags and boxes for plastic, paper, cardboard, glass and cans and tinfoil, with enough room left over to store my rotary clothes dryer, airers, mop bucket etc.
It stays relatively cool all the year round. The only drawback is the window, which catches just enough sunlight to fade herbs and spices before your very eyes! 

So, time to make a curtain!

I had a rummage in my fabric stash and hauled out the piece of heavyweight sage-green gingham I had bought for the very purpose - over two years ago! Then I went to the bedroom cupboard and brought down the Mini Stitch Sewing Machine we bought from Woolworths (how I miss Woolworths!) also about two years ago, and which had never seen the light of day before.


What a feat of miniature engineering! Just threading the blessed needle was like performing micro-surgery, and was not an easy task for someone whose eyes probably need testing again and whose fingers appear to be thumbs! Anyway, I had measured (twice) and cut (once), and pinned and tacked. Now all I had to do was sew. 

And then I remembered why I have never had an electric sewing machine before - they terrify me! This one has two speeds, Formula One and Rocket, and I just cannot master the feeding in of the fabric, the pressing the pedal and squinting to check that the machine is sewing in a straight line.  This inability to push, pull , press, see and operate is why I can't drive a car!


Needless to say, it didn't sew in a straight line, and I ended up unpicking the stitches and sewing the curtain by hand. Thankfully the pantry window is a very small one...!


The curtain got finished, ironed and hung. 
Eventually.
The Mini Stitch, after its mini outing, has been consigned to the back of the cupboard.


I doubt that I shall ever summon sufficient courage to try to beat it into submission, so a plaintive request will be posted on Freecycle before long  for a good old-fashioned hand operated sewing machine. Now don't get the impression that I'm a Luddite - I can just manage a treadle, if anyone has one going begging...!