Sewing machine for handicap use?
So, this past weekend my boyfriend met up with a friend from high school he hadn't seen in over 10 years or more. She is handicapped from the waist down and was briefly talking to me about the sewing thing i went to (the FL TOGA i had attended earlier in the day.) the conversation was brief because it was easily derailed into other conversations. (After 10 years cant say i blame them.) but she had mentioned trying to convince her disability to cover the costs of a "modern" hand crank.
Having never heard of this i googled it and the only thing i came up with was something called a byte switch, which is an adaptation to a model of singer sewing machine, that is no longer made and thus they only make these whenever they get a machine donated? or so thats what i could tell. a few folks told me some of the newer machines like Janome and bernia make a stop/start push button on their machines. could an alteration be made to a foot petal to be hand controlled? how difficult do you think it would be?
Does anyone out there know of anything that would work in this case? im curious to know the cost, because i feel its a shame that someone who wants to craft, cant due to money and being handicapped. Push comes to shove i might be inclined to send her an "old" hand crank... but id love to see my options. I just really think its a shame to limit someone because of something they have no control over. I know id hate it if suddenly i couldn't make something i know and love to make.