Thank You So Much For Subscribing
I’ve been a bit quiet on the blog because I work full time and my two kiddos are keeping me busy. Thanks for your patience with me!
I’ve recently hit 16,000 subscribers on my YouTube channel, which is wild to me, because I only just recently hit 15,000! That’s 16,000 people who watched one of my videos and said, yeah, I’d like to see more from this person! It’s an honour, especially since I’m just one gal filming what I can in my spare time.
Why haven’t there been many updates lately?
Sometimes it can be scary to post videos on YouTube. When I open the comments panel, sometimes people can be rough. I think a lot of people are used to commenting to what they deem to be faceless corporations and forget that small channels are often just one or two people. I read each and every comment. It’s just me over here, with my husband occasionally throwing his hands into my shots when I need an extra set of hands. 😂
For example, back in 2016, I excitedly created a video about the Singer 99 Sewing Machine. It was slightly artsy with its intro, with no voice over for the tutorial. Back then I was still pretty new with filming and creating sewing video content. Heck, I’m still learning new things every day. I appreciate everyone who watched the video – more than 70,000 people have watched it as of today, and it grows every day as one of my most watched videos on my channel.
Flash back time: I remember filming this video in one session vividly. It was about 1 hour before a woman was scheduled to meet up with me to purchase the machine from me. I sold the machine – then had this huge feeling of regret wash over me. It can be very hard to say goodbye to inanimate objects. There is a history of hoarding behaviour in my family, and I struggle with wanting to make sure that I don’t follow down that path while still collecting what I love.
I’m someone who purchases sewing machines, enjoys their company for a while, then sells them later (usually for the same price I purchased them for). Sometimes machines stay in my collection for years, others move along quickly when I realize that there’s another machine I want to have in my collection in its place, and only so many sewing machines will fit into my bungalow’s basement. Space is at a premium, so I try to only keep machines that have some unique feature that keeps it apart from all the others.
The Singer 66 and the Singer 99 are very similar to each other. I decided that I would keep the Singer 66 only, since the Singer 99 was the 3/4 size version of the 66. I absolutely loved the case of the 99 (seriously – the handle is so dreamy!), so it was so sad to let it go from my collection.
However, the lady who came to purchase it was so nice. I gave her an in person demo and she tried it out at my kitchen table. She fell in love with it just like I did, so that made me feel better about selling it. 💜 That demo session was six years ago, and I still remember her smile.
Buying and selling vintage sewing machines is so fun because you get to meet up with other people in your community with the same passion. It’s fabulous!
Singer 99 Video Demonstration
Back to the video: recall that I was in a panic that I was going to be letting this machine go from the collection. I decided last minute that I would film a showcase video. I filmed in one session, no retakes.
Unfortunately, I used black thread in my haste. I hadn’t done many videos before, and I didn’t realize how invisible this would be. The angle was also horrible! Rewatching the video, it’s definitely not ideal. If I still had the machine, I would have re-taken the video footage, but unfortunately the machine was long gone by the time I brought the footage to my computer for editing. 🙃 Oops. I decided to move forward with the video, and tried to make the best of the footage I had, by using a text overlay with the tutorial instructions, and including snippets from the manual.
I wish I could have done it differently. If I had access to this machine again, I would love to refilm it one day. But alas, it is what it is.
If you’re someone who watched my Singer 99 video and was disappointed by the quality:
This was one of my earliest videos and I didn’t know much about filming or editing. We ALL start somewhere. I have a newer video of threading the Singer 66 which shows the threading from multiple angles. It’s basically the same process since the Singer 99 is the 3/4 size version of the Singer 66. You may wish to check that video out here instead of this one. Hope that helps, and good luck with your Singer 99! Please keep in mind before commenting on someone’s YouTube video that there is a human who reads the comments. Ouch. 💔
I’ve pinned a similar message on the Singer 99 video, but I continue to receive harsh comments about it periodically which can bring down the mood of content creation.
Be kind, and thank you again for watching!
Alternate Threading Video: Singer 66, the Singer 99 Clone
