I hear ya sister!
I have a Singer 127 hand crank, gorgeous machine, lovely to sit on the deck in the summer and use.
But my husband has taken up flyfishing and we go to such pretty places, so I thought 'Hey...take the hand crank!"
It works..but I have to take a table also, and it is Really heavy, and I don't like the bentwood case getting banged up
So I thought and thought...And I've bought a Singer Sewhandy 20 chainstitch machine. Quite light, about the size of a small loaf of bread, no bobbin to fool with, just stick a spool of thread on the spindle and off you go.
Singer made these for many years, and variously advertised them as toys, machines to take to college, portable machines for many uses. I'm thrilled to start using it
It makes a chain stitch, which looks like a crochet chain on the back side of the fabric. It can all pull out if the stitcher is careless, but as anyone who crochets knows it is easy to loop off a chain, the machine chain is no different.
Anyway it will make a nice change from english paper piecing,