He really put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into this. It’s sad that he had to give up after trying for so long. Setting aside the journal in his hand, Ed fiddled with a piece of cloth in his hand. It just wasn’t profitable enough to keep trying to sell his own work.

He looked over at the machines taking up most of his living room. Considering how I found them, he probably gave up long ago, the notebook seems very old too.

Looking at his phone, he noticed that there were still a few hours until he would normally go to bed. Wilfred hasn’t sent me a message, so I don’t think they’re gonna need me for the rest of the day.

His arm shot forward, bursting into a wave of threads that wrapped firmly around the machines and the box. Keeping an eye on everything, he carefully brought everything downstairs, through the corridor, and into the open space. Setting them down with a little bit of a gap between them.

I feel like I’m going to go through a lot of clothes staying here, and I don’t want to spend a lot of money on buying clothes that I like. Come to think of it, I probably should have kept some of those clothes, but I didn’t really like any of them, and most didn’t fit me anyway. Besides, I’m probably gonna have a lot of free time on my hands, so why not pick up a new hobby?

Pulling the box over to the side of the sewing machine, he formed a stool for him to sit down on. I’ve seen my grandma use one like this before, I should be able to figure out how it works.

Rummaging through the box, Ed found a spool of white thread. There we are. He placed it on the spool pin and picked at it gently until he found the end of the thread. Now how do I get this over there? Ed’s eyes glanced between the thread and the sewing needle. I know it doesn’t just run straight down to it, but where does it go?

Running his hand over the machine, he noticed a small hole in a piece of metal sticking out on the other side from the spool. Does it just go through here? Pushing the thread through the hole, he shook his head. No, that doesn’t look right. I remember it looping around... Aha, there it is.

Looking closer at the body of the sewing machine, he noticed a few hooks and loops around the machine that he could pass the thread through.

Bringing the thread back to the start, he wrapped it around the front of the machine and brought it back up around the back. He looped it through the tension disc and back up to the hole he noticed earlier. From there, there were just a few more loops to pass it through before finally pushing it through the eye of the needle.

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Phew. That looks a lot closer to what I remembered. Now if I’m right, there should be something down under this plate here. Sliding the plate to the side, he noticed something firmly locked into a small circular gap. Looks like he left this in from the last time he used it... What’s this called again? The bobbin? Anyways, looks like that’s already sorted for me.

Now I just need something to work with. Let’s see what fabric’s in here. Searching through the box again, he found a small scrap of fabric that didn’t look like it could be used for anything. Might as well use it for practice.

Ed locked the piece of fabric in place under the needle with the presser foot. Everything should be good to go now, right? He double checked everything, and it looked like it was all in place. Okay, so all I’ve got to do is spin this here and...

He rested his feet on the pedal and spun the balance wheel forward. The machine started running smoothly, the needle threading through the piece of fabric. But quickly the thread got snagged somewhere it didn’t belong, jamming the machine. The machine locked up and stopped running.

Damn, what did I do wrong? Cutting the thread from the piece of fabric, he followed it back up through the thread passage, detangling it until it came to one point where the thread seemed to disappear into the machine. This is probably what’s causing the problem. How did this even happen?

Running back upstairs, he returned with the journal in hand. Consulting the journal, he quickly realised his mistake. Ah, I spun the balance wheel the wrong way. It’s supposed to come towards me. I’ll remember that... It looks like I’m gonna have to take apart the machine.

Carefully taking off the casing, he found where the thread was caught and unhooked it. Okay, let’s just start this all over again. Ed reattached the casing and rethreaded the machine. Rotating the fabric around so that he could clearly separate the two attempts, he placed his hand on the balance wheel.

Okay, here we go. He spun the balance wheel, gently resting his feet on the pedal, making sure not to put too much of his weight on it, instead letting the wheel gently guide his feet.

The needle bounced up and down, running the thread through the fabric. Slowly, a very loose stitch was created. One that could be pulled apart at a moment's notice.

Whoops, the tension’s set all the way down. Maybe I should pop that up a little. He slowed down, letting the wheel come to a stop naturally, with the needle resting back in its position above the fabric. Setting the tension regulator to ten, he set the thread and fabric up for another go at stitching.

He ran through repeated attempts, familiarising himself with the machine. Each stitch was poor and sloppy, the work of a complete novice, but he was happy with his progress. Maybe one day I could make something nice for Zara.

With a tired smile, he packed everything away and went back upstairs to bed.

I wonder how things are going back at the palace.