At the end of my stay in Ballarat Paul came up and joined me for the weekend. We headed drove home via the Daylesford Mill Markets, a huge antiques and collectables market. I saw a little mini sewing machine not much bigger than a hardback novel, but it didn’t have the power cord and food pedal so I didn’t buy it.

It got me thinking. I owned a cute mini Elna sewing machine years ago, but I foolishly gave it to a workmate before moving house, reasoning that the less I owned the easier it would be to move. I really missed that machine.

When I got home I did some googling. I looked up reviews of mini sewing machines and searched for them on eBay and in stores. Only one model was available through an Australian online store, and it had sold out. The ones on eBay looked cheap and tacky and the sellers had bad feedback. I even found a model that IKEA sells, but it wasn’t that small and reviews were bad.

Jenome’s model appealed because I already have a full size one, so bobbins, fittings and tools should be compatible. They had good reviews. However, they were only available overseas (which might mean power adaptor issues?).

But then I found one advertised on Gumtree. Trouble was, it was in Western Australia, and Gumtree works more on a ‘pay for and pick up in person’ format. I emailed the seller asking if they would post it. After a bit of too and fro, we sorted out postage and agreed on a price, and a week later this arrived:

Next to my full size Jenome for scale:

It’s much lighter – a greater difference in weight than in size. I tested it and it works, if noisily (though not in a ‘I’m broken’ kind of way). It only does straight stitch and zigzag, but so did my old Elna, and that’s fine for most non-stretch fabrics.

So I have a plan that, at the next Craft Day, instead of lugging a heavy sewing machine, sewing box and project bag into the host’s house, I’ll have one bag containing the mini sewing machine and just what I need for the projects I’m making. Though I’ll still have to carry in the same dress model if I’m making clothing, since there’s no way to miniaturise that!