Happy National Sewing Machine Day #1 (2022)

Today is the first National Sewing Machine Day of 2022!  (the 2nd day is September 10th).  To celebrate, I'm showing you a treadle that I cleaned and serviced for a friend.  This was his grandmother's treadle that had been in his mother's attic for years.  

dirty after sitting in an attic for years

pretty treadle peddle

nice treadle irons

wood cabinet in distressed shape

first photo I received of the treadle

The leather strap that attaches the machine lift to the table extension had snapped and wasn't fixable.  Hubby fixed this by using black paracord, which was much easier to use than trying to find another long, thin piece of leather.  Many machines use metal cord, but this one had used leather.  Hubby tested his idea of using paracord by using some of his yellow paracord first (shown in photos).

yellow is where the leather strap would have been

it took 2 of us to get the paracord 'fitted'

nice knot underneath to hold the paracord in place

Don't worry, we trimmed the ends of the black paracord that we used in the end so that the knot doesn't show (sorry, no photos of that).  

The protective glaze was coming off of the machine (the part that covers and protects the decals) so I had to be very careful when I cleaned the machine.  I think it cleaned up nicely.

nice and clean

showing the bed decals and the leaf tension

Another thing that had to be fixed was the pitman.  It had a broken pitman that was tied on with wire.  Hubby made a new pitman for the treadle.

broken pitman wired in place

broken pitman wired in place

I got to learn new things, too.  I have a machine with leaf tension, but I haven't sewn with it.  I learned about the tension on this type by testing out Doug's grandmother's treadle. 

Here is the treadle in it's new home, all cleaned up and ready to sew.  This is a New Home R treadle made in Orange, Mass around 1910-1911.

ready to sew

Remember those placemats I was working on? Well, the first 8 placemats are finished and in their new home.  I finished stitching the binding down yesterday.

fronts

backs

Guadalupe had asked for spring themed placemats and she loves these!  Almost all of the fabrics are from the Pioneer Woman fabric line (with a few from my stash).  I'll finish the other 14 placemats this fall, since I don't need them until Christmas.

Happy National Sewing Machine Day!