Bernina’s Eventful Adventures

Bernina and I are good friends.

I met this grand old lady when I was 18, and she has been my friend for 55 years. She’s tired and is scheduled for a checkup next week to see if we can revive her. She is a model 730 Record, Bernina sewing machine. We have been through a lot together.

Like many females of my era, I learned to sew in Home Economics class in Grade 8, making the obligatory multi-pocket apron. As I advanced through high school, my sewing projects included several dresses, then in Grade 12, a tailored plaid wool skirt and matching plaid wool jacket.

Unusual grad dress!

Using my mom’s old pedal Singer Sewing machine that lived in the basement of our home, I created my high school graduation dress. The tunic design and the multi-colored fabric might not have been my best choice, but when the artsy owner of the fabric store and my creative mother ganged up on me, I acquiesced to their suggestions; their very persuasive suggestions.

The summer I graduated, I was chosen as Miss Merritt, an ambassador for the town of Merritt at various British Columbia festivals and events. I designed and sewed the costumes for myself and the three young women, referred to as princesses, who shared responsibility as ambassadors.

Many events required a long formal dress. I didn’t have a lot of money, so I made whatever I needed. Some of the dresses were cute, and some were oddly formal and too mature for an 18-year-old, but again, my creative mother and the artsy fabric store owner thought I looked divine.

A formal dress. 

That same year, I moved to Penticton, living with a family based there but scattered. The husband worked as a cook in the camps up north. The daughter was married and living in Michigan. The oldest son was at university in Vancouver. And, the wife and younger son lived in the family home. They had extra bedrooms and rented one to me at a low monthly rate in exchange for minding their youngest son while his mom played bridge a few nights a week. The mother let me use her sewing machine to create the formal dresses I needed.

One year later, Mom decided to buy me a sewing machine. I planned to move to Vancouver with another Penticton girl and share an apartment. Mom went into the Bernina sewing machine dealership at 418 Main Street in Penticton and purchased two 730 Record machines: one for my sister Judith in Vancouver and a portable version for me.

In those days, the machines, without cabinets to house them, were around three hundred dollars or more. It was a lot of money for a recently widowed woman to be spending, but she insisted that we needed sewing machines. Judith’s machine was in a cabinet. Mine was a portable. I was single and moving frequently, and I didn’t want to deal with a bulky piece of furniture.

Ladies and me in costumes that I made

My next project was curtains for the Vancouver basement suite that my Penticton friend and I shared for six months.

Friends asked me to make bridesmaid dresses for them. A year later, I made a wedding dress for myself. Then my first husband, Sandy, asked me to make him several cozy wool shirts.

My portable Bernina sewing machine moved from Penticton to Vancouver, West Vancouver, North Vancouver, Bowen Island, back to Vancouver, and back to Penticton in 1992, when Lawrie and I bought a home and acreage here.

Lawrie, sofa that I recovered.

All along I sewed. Clothes. Reupholstered sofas. Slipcovered chairs. Upholstery for cars that Lawrie restored. Duvets. Curtains. Drapes. Tablecloths and napkins. And repairs, of course.

When Lawrie and I moved to Mexico in 2007, I left my Bernina with my oldest sister, Val, in Gibsons. I didn’t want to subject the machine’s delicate electronics to the high humidity and salt at our oceanfront home. Val is a fabulous seamstress, and she had several specialty machines and didn’t need mine, so it languished in her basement for twelve years.

When I returned to Canada in 2020, my sister reminded me that she still had the Bernina, but she wasn’t using it. I retrieved it from her home, all thirty-five pounds of it, and brought it back to its origins in Penticton. It seems that both the Bernina and I are destined to live in this city.

The old girl doesn’t respond when I plug her in. I have an appointment at the same Bernina dealership at 418 Main Street to see if the current owner, Wes, can repair her. Let’s hope she’s up for more adventures. As it turned out, she needed about $300 in repairs. I have put my Bernina back in the cupboard for now.

December 2025: I gave my Bernina to a local friend, Kerri Younie, who creates the gorgeous costumes for the annual Sound Stage Productions in Penticton, BC. She has taken it to Wes at the Bernina store on Main Street to be reconditioned and put back into service. Thank you so much, Kerri, for giving the old girl a new life.

Cheers Lynda