My mother taught me to sew on her circa-1960 machine when I was an unwilling teenager. Now, at 56 I’ve finally got the time and the good sense to appreciate sewing again. I’ve got a nice modern machine now, but that’s not what this story is about.
I’ve never been into antiques, but yesterday my friend Mary Jane invited me to go with her to a relocation sale at a local antiques mall. We were strolling through the aisles cooing over things when I stopped dead in my tracks, looking at an ancient Singer treadle sewing machine and was struck by a memory from childhood: “Ratchey-Tatchey Clank Clank!”
I remembered my mother sitting at an identical machine – identical except that in my memory, my mother’s was taller than me! That means I was probably under 5 at the time. Mom would push the treadle and chant along with the machine: Ratchey-Tatchey Clank Clank! and I would chant along with her. Ratchey-Tatchey Clank Clank! Ratchey-Tatchey Clank Clank! Ratchey-Tatchey Clank Clank! It was so easy to entertain a 5 year old in those days!
After I regained my senses I bought it on the spot. It needs some cleaning and oiling, but other than that it appears to need only the belt from the wheel to the treadle to be ready to sew. My hands remembered exactly how to raise and lower the machine into the cabinet without a fumble. The treadle moved exactly the way I expected it to.
But for the life of me I can’t figure out how to thread the bobbin. Probably because I was never allowed to get my chubby little 5 year old fingers that close to the needle assembly.
A little Googling reveals this machine was built in 1904. There were millions made, and they were designed to be repaired, not replaced, so there’s lots of them around, apparently many of them still being used on a daily basis. It’s not worth a lot, and apparently I paid just about the right price for it. It’s BEAUTIFUL! Curvy, black enamel, with a Sphinx embedded in the gold Egyptian-esque decorations. 107 years old, and the wheel spins smoothly and silently. My knees make more noise than the treadle, and they’re barely half that old!
So today I find myself online looking for a leather treadle belt and wondering if I’m about to become an antique collector. In my line of work everything becomes obsolete in a heartbeat. The machines I work on for a living barely have time to get dusty before I’m replacing them. I find it strangely soothing working on something this old. How many hands turned that wheel; how many little girls went to the first day of school wearing a dress off that machine? Could I have been one of them?
I’ll never know, I guess. And that’s part of why it’s so cool.
It took a little time, but I tracked down the belt, downloaded a copy of the original manual (packrats and hoarders of the world, thank you!), did a little research on the do’s and don’ts of restoring antiques, and before long I had a working machine!
I have sewed on it a bit, and it’s smooth as butter. No reverse, no zig zag, no frills, but it will sew a straight flat seam FAST FAST FAST – as fast as your feet can pump, and much faster than an electric machine. They built these suckers to LAST. I’m planning on this being my entree to the barter-based community after the zombie apocalypse. I know how to sew, and I can do it without electricity! Surely that’s worth trading for some sugar and a loaf of bread! Or maybe I should cut back on the post-apocalyptic science fiction novels?
