18?? No wonder you need that big house :). I learned to sew on my grt-grandmother's treadle machine and my mothers dependable singer and have four of my own right now. Currently my main machine is a Bernina (basic model, not to many bells and whistles but I love it). The backup is my 30 yr old White. I also have a veteran Kenmore that a friend used for sewing canvas and left me when she moved. I use it for the heavy duty sewing I don't want to push the Bernina on (which isn't much). There is also an old singer in a cabinet that used to be the back-up machine but is now looking for a good home. I have never felt the need for a serger, not sure why, just never appealed to me. Ditto with an embroidery machine altho I can see where they could be very handy for some things if I was still sewing more commercially. Another question might be how many motors have we gone through on our machines :)? The White, which was my main machine during my heaviest sewing time, is on it's second and could probably do with a third. Catherine ******************************* I have 18 sewing machines in my house; two on loan making a whopping 20. Four are treadles, two feather weights, and the earliest dates (that I can tell) from 1919 I may have earlier models but I cannot trace them. This also includes my one lone serger and my industrial machine. My main machine is my Singer Stylist c.1969 My favourite is my hand crank portable c.1920 that save my bacon back the year we had Hurricane Juan and we were without power for over a week and I had sewing to do; sad irons, a hand crank and oil lamp...somehow fitting in my c1870s house Sarah Paterson Great Village, NS Canada _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
