Wisconsin Life

When I sit down and sew, my hands are busy with this thing that's so familiar.

sound of sewing machine

It's some magical combination of the motor sound and the sound of the needle.

machine sound

It allows my mind to open up and think about other things. I do a lot of problem solving when my hands are moving at a machine. Solving an unexpected problem set Margaret Jankowski on a course to help mend the world. To me, a sewing machine is so much more than just a tool. Margaret learned that lesson in 2004 when a tsunami ravaged Asia. An event made personal through a story about a woman in Sri Lanka. She had lost her sewing machine-- her only way to make a living. Something about that article really hit me. As a sewer, I thought, "I don't know what I'd do without my sewing machine." But reading further and thinking about it, it was clear, that for this woman, that sewing machine was a tool for survival. I thought I'll collect some sewing machines and I'll send them over to Southeast Asia. At the time, Margaret worked at a sewing machine shop in Madison. She tapped the generous spirit of its customers to donate machines to what she named The Sewing Machine Project. Sewing machines are so important to people that it's wonderful when people know that their machine will have another chapter and that it will go to help somebody else. As the first donated machines made their way to Sri Lanka, disaster struck closer to home -- Hurricane Katrina. I rented a van, and my daughter and I drove to New Orleans. I still deliver sewing machines to New Orleans, mainly to the Mardi Gras Indians. It's an amazing community. I think there was one year that Mardi Gras, the Mardi Gras parade would not have happened without Margaret taking those machines down there. Today, The Sewing Machine Project is more than just Margaret. In the Madison area, they hold sewing classes for under-served populations. Monica Mims took one of the classes taught by Rebecca Stanley and is working with her as an apprentice. I'm really happy to teach her what I know. And she's very fast. She's a very fast learner. - Thank you. It's a great opportunity to learn something new and fun. We offer classes in different spots around Madison. And different groups around the country are interested in offering this, too. And we offer them machines and then, they tailor the class to the population that they're serving. In a converted Madison Lutheran Church school room, Margaret found a storehouse for donated machines. And as you can see, there are sewing machines everywhere. We try to make sure that every single machine, everything on it works. We want our machines to make people happy. We don't want it to be a headache in any way. Our volunteers carefully go through them and check everything. We have to be careful what we send out for machines, because we don't want to start a fire in someone's house. Margaret and The Sewing Machine Project's newest effort benefits the public, even if they don't want to touch a machine. All right. We're on it. - Thanks so much. My sewing skills are not good. I can do things by hand. I've never tried a machine, heaven help us all. Fortunately for Larry Orr, every other Wednesday, The Sewing Machine Project offers free mending, first come, first served, at Madison's Goodman Community Center. These are some of the most popular ladies in the building. When I'm mending something for someone, especially people that I'm meeting for the first time, to me there's something almost sacred about it because so often these are things that are dearly loved. There's so much trust on the part of the person giving it to us. I would say "sacred" is the word that I would use. It's really something. Silk long johns, expertly repaired! Thank you ladies. I really appreciate this. As Margaret watches The Sewing Machine Project grow and diversify, she sees the common thread-- making a difference. Whether we are sitting at a table and mending things for people or we're sitting down next to someone who's learning how to use a sewing machine, I can't help but think that there's some little bit of mending going on. You know, it might ease somebody's... somebody else's struggle. It might make somebody else's life easier in some way. I think everybody has the power to do that. We just want to do something that's good.

mechanical hum of sewing machine