I have to come clean, I have A LOT of sewing machines. Bit of an Ebay habbit combined with people giving me machines, car boot sales etc, and before you know it you have about 20! Yes, 20.

So I thought I would do a little series of reviews on them. Some of them are just functional, some are just decorative, and most are both. I will start with my Christmas present from my dad. It’s an Elna Grasshopper.

My dad told me about this beautiful old machien only last year. I had not heard of them, you rarely see them and they tend to sell for a lot of money. Just a few months later he found one in a second hand shop for the princely sum of €17!! I know, shocking. It’s in its original case, with the handbook and all it’s feet included. The plug had burnt out so my clever dad wired a new socket in (it looks fine!) and now it works with standard computer leads. It woks with a knee lever instead of a foot pedal. Took me some time to get used to as you end up sitting very differently, but it’s nice not to have a pedal which can go off on walkies (as they do).

The machine purrs along, despite being almost 70 years old, and it’s a joy to use. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a small and super cute straight stitch only machine. I have made a quilt on it and it doesn’t mind lots of layers. Really the only annoying things about this little machine is that the stitch length selector (which includes the reverse selector) is to the right of the bed and it’s not easy to access when you are sewing so it seriously slows you down. Not sure why it’s there. I guess they didn’t want to break the clean line of the front of the machine. Design over practicality!

This last picture is her in action doing some free motion on the quilt I had just made on her. Gorgeous stitching!