Sharon Dubyna started collecting sewing machines when she arrived in Williams Lake in 2006.
She now has 20 machines, about 15 of them in the antique category, and the majority of them with their own pet names.
“I started with a Singer industrial antique and it went from there,” Dubyna says.
She says her Featherweight machine was found buried in a dump.
“I pulled it out, cleaned it up and it sewed perfectly,” Dubyna says.
She also enjoys doing some of her quilt piecing on a 97-year-old antique hand-cranked Singer machine which she was demonstrating during the Jean Andersen Memorial Quilt Show held at the Williams Lake Curling Rink Saturday and Sunday and hosted by the Williams Lake Piecemakers Quilting Club.
Among her machines on display was a 1924 Singer treadle machine.
She says her older beige electric Singer 301 is the quietest machine she has ever sewed on. It also has a slant needle casing which she says is better for vision.
She says she does most of her quilting on a Featherweight or her Kenmore named Diane.
But given her love for antique and old sewing machines Dubyna also has a special space in her sewing room just for fixing and restoring the sewing machines she collects.