For a long time I have wanted a treadle sewing machine. I think they are beautiful and the fact that I enjoy sewing adds to the beauty of them – for me anyway.
The Bird-in-Hand mud sale happens in late June each year. This mud sale looked like a good one. Jay loves going to these auctions and it’s fun for an afternoon. But you have to be quick about what you want and how much you are willing to pay for it. I managed to pick up a sled for a great price which will be piled high with wrapped gifts as part of the holiday decor, but that’s another post . . . this post is about the treadle. See, we were in the furniture tent and the sewing machines started coming up. Like I said, I have always wanted one – but it wasn’t what we were looking for and I wasn’t sure I had a place to put it. So when the first machine came up and sold for something like $12 I could have kicked myself. I wasn’t quick enough. Jay finally ended up winning the bid for a cabinet without a machine. That cabinet was in rough shape!
We just happened to have guests sitting in the swing and gazebo when Jay was unloading the items he bought at the mud sale. R – helped him move some of the furniture and put it into the house. Well, come to find out R has a small collection of sewing machines and people regularly give him treadles and other sewing machines. Many of them they have put into a museum. When R came to stay again in August, they brought a beautiful light colored treadle cabinet and a machine that would fit in it – that only needed a belt to work.
One day last week – I said to Jay, maybe you can move the base from our machine into the cabinet from the machine that R brought us. I’d like to swap that table out for our guest book. It feels like a piece of me in the guest common areas now. It’s smaller than the table that was in the same spot previously, but I like this *sew* much better. Sadly, the machine doesn’t fit into this cabinet – not without loads of modifications, but someday, we’ll have a working treadle in this spot.
For now – this will do just fine.
View from the front door