I recently had my niece and nephew over, and they fell in love with sewing. So naturally, I gave them my backup sewing machine.
Yesterday I dropped my main machine off at the shop for a standard cleaning and some minor repair. Things happen when 8 & 12 year olds sew and you're lax with paying attention, lol.
But I was not leaving myself without a machine! Several months I had bought an older Pfaff while drinking wine and shopping on ebay (big mistake, I don't recommend this). I took it, untested, to the local Pfaff dealer and asked them to pick it over, let me know if it works, and if it does work to give it a lube and cleaning. When I picked it up they told me it works great and just needed some lube. I finally plugged it in today so I could do some piecing and it doesn't work at ALL. It makes horrible grinding noises and smells like burning electronics. Angrily I unplugged it and pulled my service documents (which I foolishly didn't read previously, I just talked to the guy at the counter) and I see it's marked clearly as not working. (But they charged me to clean and oil it anyway, which all together means I will NOT be going back to that particular dealer ever again! Thankfully not the dealer my main machine goes to.)
So in essence, I have gone through 3 machines in a week.
Fortunately, I have
one more backup machine. My original, basic, bottom-of-the-line Kenmore I had bought when I was still a teenager and had just moved out on my own. This poor machine has been neglected, abused, and neglected some more. I pulled her out of her case, plugged her in, threaded her up and...what do you know, she runs juuuust fine. I had been thinking about giving this machine away because I thought I'd never use it again. I was wrong! I need to give her some grease or something because she's squeaky but other than that she's in fine working shape.
If anything happens to this one, though, I'm in trouble. I probably should pick up a couple more sewing machines, just to be on the safe side. Like maybe that awesome Slant-o-matic I saw when I was dropping off my main machine....
It's good to have a stash...of fabric, of bobbins, and of machines! LOL