CARNA

I have not posted lately, a winter flu that hung on for weeks followed by another bout of health probs, has seen me glued to the couch instead of the sewing machine. Finally, I am on the mend again. Spring has arrived and winter departed till next year. I am thankful to see the sunny days again and feel the sun's warmth, as the cold seemed to go on forever these past few months. No, we don't get snow, or even very cold temperatures compared to other places, but I missed the joy of blue skies and longer days. "Carna" came into my home three years ago. She is in mint condition, from the late fifties, early sixties. She has wonderful little silver gears on the top, and you combine them to make different fancy stitches and change her embroidery discs to make more. Her only drawback is that to change the bobbin you have to take your life into your hands and heave her upwards, hold her there, while you manouvre the bobbin out from underneath her. She weighs a ton. She also takes special short needles, though I do have an extra bobbin case with a hole cut in it to take the modern longer needles, for they hit the bobbin case without the hole. She is named after my aunt I never knew. My father was one of twelve children, and Carna had died in her early twenties. Her brother had died ten days before, and she went to his funeral and caught the flu. No penicillan back then. How my grandparent's hearts must have grieved, how terrible to lose both just days apart. Her photo always sat in my grandparents county home, "Wayford". I lived there as a child for four years from when I was born. Carna always looked so cool and detached, a remote figure, always a mystery and one always felt one should lowere one's voice when you were near the photo, or I did, anyway. I am not sure how my myriad of other cousins felt. So when this beautiful machine came into my posession there were no if's or buts, I named her after that lovely remote figure in the oval photo frame. Of the twelve brothers and sisters, only two are left, my father and his sister Mickey. My Aunt Carna, however will always be young and beautiful, caught in time, never to grow old like the other siblings.