SyRep

We hear it almost every week.

People come to us with their sewing machine – to have it repaired, after being told this elsewhere:
“It is not worth repairing.”
“It is too old, parts are no longer available.”
“You can just throw it away – we have a much better machine you can buy.”

Fortunately, many people take their machine and check elsewhere.
But the stories that really hurt are the others.
Those who bought a new machine, left the old one behind – and only later hear from us that the old one could actually have been repaired.

It hurts. Every time.

Because that is not just a sewing machine.
(It actually makes our blood boil just writing this.)

It is:

• a machine that has followed someone through half their life
• a break, therapy, peace in everyday life
• bought with confirmation money or a first salary
• inherited from a mother or grandmother, with memories sewn into every stitch
• a machine you know instinctively – and where the joy of sewing disappears completely if you have to start over

These are not hypothetical examples.
These are real stories we have heard again and again.

And then comes what makes us both sad and angry:
The claim that these machines cannot be repaired, when we know that this is often not true.
Sometimes it is a simple fault – such as a capacitor costing around 50 NOK – in machines that are otherwise built to last for generations.

How can one, over the phone or without opening the machine, determine that it is “broken”?
How can one say that the motor has failed, when one knows that the fault is often well known and repairable?
And how can one fail to say the most important thing of all:
“I cannot repair this – but maybe someone else can.”

For us, this is about more than sewing machines.
It is about professional pride. Honesty. Respect for people and their stories.

We are only two people, and we cannot change the entire industry.
But we can tell what we see – so that people know what is actually happening and are not misled.

That is why Gjertrud has gathered documentation and written thoroughly about this.
Not to get more repair work – quite the opposite.
We have several times had to decline jobs and even stop accepting certain brands, just to keep the workload manageable.

We share this because we could not live with staying silent.
When something means so much to so many, you cannot just say:
“You can just throw it away.”