In the news this morning...

Mark Twain, or possibly former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, reportedly said: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." And Benjamin Franklin said: "Believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see." Edgar Allan Poe switched that one end-for-end, but the meaning's the same. But enough with the rhetoric - please tell us who makes that cute little 4-thread serger in this picture. It's a lot more compact than those made years ago. It's probably an industrial model and expensive. These are fun to use, if you're into that sort of thing. You can turn two bath towels into a bathrobe in half an hour, but the question arises: 'Do I really want to spend between $1200 and $1500 on a machine that makes a bathrobe in half an hour, or remodels old jeans into shorts in 20 minutes?' How often do we really need to do that? Not that often, most likely. 

But if sewing is one of your hobbies, and you enjoy making things, these are a lot of fun. You can turn out a finished result that is even better made than stuff you buy off the racks, and that's because you're going to be taking more care with it, and finishing off the loose ends of threads, etc., which aren't always done in a factory operation. I only recently discarded a fleece jogging suit that I made about 25 years ago using a 4-thread serger and a Bernina free-arm sewing machine. It almost refused to wear out. I took up sewing as therapy for my being pushed into early retirement, and it really worked. I learned something useful, and had a lot of fun doing it. The neighborhood kids teased me a lot, but they stopped when they saw what I could do with the machines.