Zatera Ul

The pregnancy seems to be going fine–the baby was scooting around too much for the midwife to count heartbeats at our last visit. I’m starting to maybe feel him or her move–it’s hard to tell.

It’s nice that Target has maternity swimsuits, but why are their swimtops all far too short to cover a pregnant tummy? Guess I’ll have to keep looking.

While we were there, I also looked at sewing machines–I’ve been thinking of getting a new sewing machine, or maybe a serger. But after looking at the display models, maybe I’ll stick with my old sewing machine. Plastic machine bodies, ugh–bet they try to move all over the table when you’re sewing. Bobbins: too hard to get at; having to slide a drawer out of the way to get at the bobbin is annoying. I’ve been sewing enough that I need to change the bobbin at least once every sewing session. Even the drop-in bobbins don’t seem much better–I’m not convinced that the presser foot wouldn’t get in the way, and the bobbin cover latches were hard to manipulate. I couldn’t figure out how to even raise the presser feet. The machines generally seemed flimsy–too much plastic.

All this in comparison to my current sewing machine, a garage sale Kenmore Model 43 that looks to be from the late 50’s or early 60’s. (I bet Lileks could date it almost to the month, by looking at the pictures and typography in its manual.) Solid cast metal body, simple controls, accessible bobbin, choice of straight stitch or zigzag. Snazzy metallic lavender and chrome finish–much, much cooler than plain white plastic. The main problem with it is the tension control; it adds tension, but the amount is very difficult to control. It’s the only part of the machine that’s not sturdily built. Lately I’ve just been bypassing it, because I’m using a great big cone of thread, which provides enough tension by itself. My mother’s late-70’s Kenmore machine has the same problem.

By the way, it’s been very satisfying to make cloth diapers from garage sale flannel and rummage sale thread, using a $3 garage sale sewing machine.

One other thing we did was go to Custom Cat Purrniture (in St. Paul) and get a scoop-shaped cat shelf. Our bed frame is my former sleeping loft, inverted, so I had a place to put it up–way up near the top of one of the posts. Our cat likes it, but I can tell she wishes that it were wide enough for her to sprawl out on.