Feeling Sewing Machine Love

This is my sewing machine. It's a Janome 11590. You can buy it for about $150. It's a great machine. I chose a soft focus image because it conveys a bit of how much I love this machine.

I had bought it in a moment of desparation when my usual machine seems to have died. I bought this machine as a stop gap measure until I got my other machine fixed. I would have been satisfied with a machine that was just not terrible.

This machine is so terrific that I still haven't repaired the old machine. I feel especially fond of the machine when I do long lines of decorative stitching. The purple silk diamond stitching above steetches across about 45 inches of tallit stripe. I did four, 45 inch rows of that stitch with silk thread. The machine never balked. The thread never broke. My old machine had to be coaxed and coddled to produce long rows of decorative stitching. I never have to worry with this machine.

Sometimes you need to spend big bucks to get a great machine. But not always.

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מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים

וְנֶאֱמָן אַתָּה לְהַחֲיוֹת מֵתִים: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים You are faithful to restore the dead to life. Blessed are You, Adonoy, Resurrector of the dead. That particular line is recited at every single prayer service every day three times a day, unless you use a Reform or Reconstructionist prayer book . In those liturgies instead of praising God for resurrecting the dead God is praised for giving life to all. I am enough of a modern woman, a modern thinker, to not actually believe in the actual resurrection of the dead. I don't actually expect all of the residents of the Workmen's Circle section of Mount Hebron cemetery in Queens to get up and get back to work at their sewing machines. I don't expect the young children buried here or the babies buried here to one day get up and frolic. Yet, every single time I get up to lead services I say those words about the reanimating of the dead with every fiber of my being. Yesterday, I e...

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sarah in nyc

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