The wave of gorgeous containers flooding the markets today is a far cry from the war-time hand-made boxes I created as a child. I have a great army of little containers......so, why do I keep my broken needles in a little cheap clear plastic squash-on-lid container? I also have my plastic pin container, the original one the flat flower-head pins are sold in, stuck onto the table next to my machine with double-sided sticky tape so it won't accidentally land on the floor and spill its contents when I get really wound-up in a pinning spree.

I expect I hardly need to remind sewing people who use modern computerised machines to keep anything magnetic away from their machines, but my very best friend of many years, avid quilter and bag-maker, didn't know this when she bought her new Janome three or four years ago.
We had a shopping excursion to Spotlight (think JoAnn's in America) and each bought a large magnetic plastic-covered pin keeper - great for swiping over a sewing table to catch wayward pins. She had hers next to her machine. Nothing happened to the machine because she hadn't put it on her machine and it wasn't actually touching the machine, but she was quite upset when I reminded her not to put it on, or so near, her machine. No-one had ever told her, and she had never heard or read, about the problems that can arise if you do put magnetic sewing tools on your machine.

I thought I'd send this in as a reminder just case someone does, in a moment of busy-ness, put a magnetic tool on her machine and find that the computer is messed up.

AlmaG.