After an hour I got the threading right – of course I broke it several times and also had to change the dreaded bobbin after getting all the thread in a knot deep inside
It is many years since I used a treadle sewing machine – at Barassie Street Primary School where we girls still had sewing lessons while the boys did Woodwork. Those afternoons in the sewing room, warmed by a wood fire (can that be right?) with 20 other girls making shoe bags seem like a dream from another world. We also had Cookery classes when the boys did Metalwork and produced rice puddings while learning that you can judge the worth of a woman by the state of her tea towel drawer.
I had to get help from the trusty internet after spending ages trying to get the foot pedal going.
Is it stuck? Should I oil it?
No – you need to turn the hand wheel towards you first and then pedal away with both feet – the right one slightly in front of the left. (the video clip is silly but made me laugh and relax and do it right)
“A treadle machine makes stitches far superior to those of a modern electric machine”
In the right hands I am sure it would
But it was lovely once we found our rhythm and of course the fantasies started – patchwork quilts, tango dresses, bags…
But today it was curtains and work had to stop when dark fell and the lovely long sewing room got too cold even for me
My husband’s mother had one that she brought with her from Spain to Canada when they emigrated, and she used it for decades, indeed, she made the curtains that hang in our house now on a tredle machine. They are magnificent. The machines that is, though the curtains are too.
Oh my goodness! I, too, have a very, very old sewing machine. It’s not a treadle but it does have an ancient foot pedal and the machine part itself looks like the one in your photograph. I sew very simply – hems, extra elastic in my son’s pants (he’s soooo skinny). I do a simple forward stitch and a backward stitch and that’s IT. But I’m always a little proud when I’ve done what I need to do without sewing up my finger or breaking a needle. Love, love, love your shadow photos below this post! And I’m sure I would have wet my pants if I saw coffee coming out of YOUR nose!
Oreneta – that is a nice image of the sewing machine travelling across to Canada. and makes me wonder if you met your husband over there rather than here? But that is too nosy so no need to answer.
i am still treadling away – the sound of the machine is so soothing and I had totally forgotten what it was like. Must be over 40 years since I last used one. Now I am hooked.
Bodhi – how great that you have one too. I can only do simple things too – once made a nightie – a long flannelette thing with frill on the cuffs which covered me from neck to toe. But that was when I was 13. Nothing since.
My machine only goes forwards – to go back at the end of the seams you pin it down with the needle and turn all the fabric round the other way. It’s lovely! No complicated things to learn – no electrical or worse microchip options to overwhelm me. Just thread it, turn the hand wheel and pedal away.
Next thing is a pin cushion. K x
I learned to sew on a machine like this when I was very tiny. It was my Grandma’s machine which had been 21st birthday present from her father which makes it 1902 vintage. It had a shuttle shaped like a torpedo rather than a round one. Anyway I was allowed to use it from a very young age – it kept me quiet I suppose, so now I can’t remember ever not being able to thread up a sewing machine.