My best-value purchase

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I’ve often posted on here about things I have made or fixed, which frequently involves sewing. And my trusty partner in this endeavour is my sewing machine, which was my 15th birthday present back in the early 1980s (yes I am that old – it scares me!) And yes I guess technically that means it wasn't my purchase at all, but you know what I mean. My machine was expensive at the time, but it has earned its cost back many times over. I have made countless dresses, tops, leggings, shirts, skirts, shorts, trousers, waistcoats and bags for myself, as well as things for my girls, my mother, my partner, even my work colleagues. I’ve made duvet covers and pillow cases, curtains and cushion covers, and of course repaired and altered garments as required. I just can’t imagine what I would do without it! The latest was a last-minute fancy outfit for Big One – will no doubt post about that soon. But what surprised me most was that last week when wandering around the shops in town, I found that John Lewis sells sewing machines, and that the prices ranged from around £125 to around £279, mid-range machines being about £189. (This is also significantly less than most of the evening dresses available!) This was surprising because my machine, bought almost 40 years ago, cost £179! (I still have the receipt). So either the cost of sewing machines has stayed the same over the last four decades, while everything else has rocketed (bread, for example, has tripled in price, a car costs about 4.5 times as much, while a house has gone up sixteen-fold over the same period), or else modern machines are cheap and shoddily made. Hopefully I won’t need to find out as my machine is still going so far! All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2022.