Whew - DD is expecting #6 so she left the other 5 with us for a while this afternoon for a dr visit. #s 2,3 & 4 had a sewing lesson. #1 already can sew. #2 has some vision problems. I got out a HC and worked with her awhile with just paper. She needs something even slower so she can control things but she has the idea right. She made the machine stop needle down - lift the foot, turn, put the foot down and sew!!! YES! For her to make it do that is a challenge. Then #3 got a turn. She was all over the map with it. She forgets everything. Wants to do it her way. Yadda yadda - not ready to sew IMHO. Then #4, Wilbur had to have a turn. I could see right away he was doing well just to turn the crank. By golly he can crank it up. Walter, #5 sat and watched the show and giggled and once in a while said "OH OH!" Wilbur also got a kick out of watching the shuttle go when I opened it up.

Does anyone know a source for carbon brushes. Sew-Classic has 5/16 ths. The brushes for my New Home 556 are much smaller, slightly bigger than 1/8th inch, maybe 3/32nd. One, I need to know what to order. Two, from whom. Many thanks.

Wow, I wonder how the Elgin got the paint chipped off like that? It almost looks like someone did that on purpose!

Nancy

Miriam, you are going to catch up with us! One of our daughters has 7 kids and one of the boys has 5 kids! I think we must of skipped the part where parents explain to their kids about the birds and the bees . . . . . . . and, what causes babies!

Nancy

My daughter very smugly replies that they know exactly what causes it and it is a lot of fun... Our DIL is due right before DD so we will be up to 9. They know what causes it too.

If you find out let me know, too...

Miriam, the girls' grandmother is on board with the idea of an older straight stitch machine that is not a pain in the @$$ to use for her grandkids. I do have a machine that I can clean quickly and get it up and running. It's waiting on me to finish her up.

I had to laugh when reading your post. I watched an episode of "Hoarders" last night and one of the comments made was, "She has 8 sewing machines!", as if that was a bad thing. :D

Just about any older straight stitch would be better IMHO... I gave my gals some cards. I let them draw fat magic marker dots. Mercy has some visual problems. Miss L is only 6. Anyway they sewed from dot to dot. Mercy was able to do fine. Miss L had a hard time remembering what to do and she likes to turn the hand wheel backwards. I think the cards make it easy. Not very big and kind of stiff - big dots easy to hit, lift, turn and go on. Fat magic marker lines are easy to hit. Success is so important. I know they will learn a lot from failure but why start with failures. Mercy needs a HC machine with a one to one ratio so she can go pretty slow. I'm sure hope she can get to smaller lines.

8 sewing machines make you a hoarder..... GOD help us all...........

somebody buy some of them..... LOL