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Thread Number: 79205
/ Tag: Member Selling Item(s)/Non Professionally
Singer Foot pump sewing machine |
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Post# 1031656 , Reply# 2 5/3/2019 at 04:58 (1,813 days old) by askolover  (South of Nash Vegas, TN) |
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 Too bad I'm not closer because I'd take it. I'd rather sew with my treadle any day over my new electric machines. Lately the only time I get the new one out is to do a button hole since my treadle doesn't zig zag. So many of these machines are getting destroyed by people using the treadles for tables and tossing the cabinets and machine heads. I'd give anything to have my great-grandmother's old machine. My mother gave it away when I was a teenager! | ||
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Post# 1031689 , Reply# 3 5/3/2019 at 13:06 (1,812 days old) by ea56 (Cotati, Calif.) |
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When my maternal grandparents got married in 1919, the first thing they bought was a Singer Treadle Sewing Machine. My grandma made all of her four daughters clothing on that Singer, every year, 5 new dresses with matching drawers for each girl. And she “took in sewing” by making clothing, doing alterations and mending for the people in town that couldn’t do this for themselves.
In 1935 when they were leaving Kansas for California, Grandpa told Grandma that there wasn't room in the little trailer he built for the move, to take the Singer. Grandma sat right down and said if the Singer didn’t go to California, neither would she. So, Grandpa found the room for it. In the early 60’s when they downsized and moved into a mobile home my Mom got the Singer. I taught myself to sew on it. And when the leather belt that drove the treadle broke, I fashioned a makeshift belt by tying shoe laces together to make a belt, and by God, the Singer still worked this way. And there is no better machine for sewing through several layers of denim, they never bog down or refuse to do what they were designed to do. If you are lucky enough to have one of these treasures, take good care of it, and it will never let you down. Eddie | ||
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Post# 1031799 , Reply# 5 5/4/2019 at 16:18 (1,811 days old) by LowEfficiency (Iowa) |
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>> If you want to make yourself sick, look up old sewing machine ‘upcycles’ and behold the horror.
>> It’s sacrilege to destroy these machines the way people do, and to do it for a powder room sink >> console or an end table. Don't take it that hard. These sewing machines are a consumer product that sold in staggering quantities - many tens of millions of them were produced. While built to last and still up to the same tasks as when new, these machines are for most folks long considered obsolete as we as a society generally no longer make our own clothing. They were being trashed and scrapped with no concern for *decades* before Pinterest, Etsy, and the like gave them some value again. If anything, the horrors of their upcycling has made them more relevant as a cultural piece now than they were for the generation before, resulting in more of the remaining units being saved - at least in part. I'm typing this from a computer desk built on - you guessed it - a cast iron treadle base, from a Domestic brand machine. I didn't take it apart - someone else did - and instead of rotting away in a dump, it's now living at least five or six new lives with different owners as its separate components. But I still do all my sewing on a 1910 Singer Model 27, Sphinx motif. | ||
| Post# 1031972 , Reply# 6 5/6/2019 at 17:32 (1,809 days old) by bradross (New Westminster, BC., Canada) | ||
I use my great-aunt's 1904 Singer... | ||
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Post# 1031983 , Reply# 7 5/6/2019 at 22:49 (1,809 days old) by askolover (South of Nash Vegas, TN) |
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I made a small drop-leaf table for my breakfast area from Tony's grandmother's treadle. It was already dismantled...nothing but the iron base left...sitting outside rusting in the elements. I cleaned it up, put rust neutralizer on it, and made the table top. At least it won't disintegrate into a pile of iron dust now. But that old National treadle I picked up in Nashville last year, I thought sure I'd have to pitch all the wood but the drawers were salvageable. I just had to glue the oak veneer back in place and re-shellac everything. I made simple new top from oak plywood and stained it to match. The machine head was locked up so I replaced it with a 50's Japanese Singer 15 clone that sews like a dream. I was later able to get the National freed up and got it to sew again too. I'd give the machine head to someone if they wanted it to use because the hinge pins aren't set to the Singer standard and won't fit the top I made. | ||
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