Pet Peeves and Sewing Machines

Some friends and I were talking recently about pet peeves.  Do you have any?

I really do not like hearing people use bad grammar, or using words incorrectly.   I will admit that I don't always use the proper English or American grammar all the time but some things are like nails on the chalk board.

My least favorite usage error is when someone writes or says "please call Jim or myself..."  Mrs. Wright, my teacher in fourth grade always said take out the other person and see if it makes sense.  So take out Jim and you get "please call myself".

BZZZZ!  No!!  Only I can call myself -- names, or on the phone, whatever, it makes no sense.

Acronyms are another pet peeve of mine.  How many things can WRA stand for these days?  Well, there's the Water Reclamation Association,  Washington Radiology Association, Weapons of Removal and Abatement (I kid you not!), and on and on.   Go ahead, Google "WRA" and see for yourself.

Last on today's list is the Featherweight Sewing Machine.  It seems like everyone wants to get on the Featherweight bandwagon, so much so that you cannot buy a decent machine for under  $200 unless you're prepared to do a lot of restoration and/or repair.  Check out eBay or Google Featherweight.  many listings are as much as $500!

A machine like this is on eBay for $475

Granted they are nice machines for taking to class, they're small and light (thus the name).  But seriously, any other small machine should serve the purpose, right?  I have a Janome Jem that weighs 12 pounds and it works very well for classes.

So here's the peeve part:  There are people in blog-land who brag about how many Featherweight machines they own.  People will buy them in apparent bunches.  They buy one made in the year they were born, in the year their mother/father/sister/aunt/grandmother was born, one in black with decals, one in black with no decals, one in green, white or pink and one that works with a hand crank.

Pink FW

Basic black

Blue - did someone paint it?

White...

Why do they need so many Featherweights*?  In my experience you can only sew on one at a time.  And if so many people are buying up two or six or twelve machines, what's left for the rest of us to buy?

<Sigh>  Whoever said life was fair? 

*Disclaimer, I do own more than one sewing machine, but they are all different. I have my main machine, a serger, an embroidery machine, the aforementioned Jem, and a treadle machine that was my husband's grandmother's first and only machine, and a small Babylock that technically belongs to my oldest Grand but it lives at my house.  When she's sewing, my youngest Grand calls the Jem "hers".  I'm good with that!

Sew on...