Look What Came Home!

When it Rains, it Pours!

Or when you open yourself up to bringing people into your life, those people can turn right around and bring you into theirs and leave you all the happier!

Such is the case that happened when I met Terri in my class at the Bluegrass Quilt festival.
We started talking about things we had in common.  And you know, us Quilters --- we have LOADS in common!

And then she popped the question ---
As in “I have a ((Fill in the blank)) that needs a good home.  Would you be interested??”

It’s a good thing it wasn’t a puppy or a kitten because I would have had a hard time saying no, but I would have had to. As it stood…..

If I show you THIS photo…can you guess what it is?

I’m sure you already know….but aren’t you the least bit curious to see just a bit MORE?  Okay – how bout THIS peek?

Precious cargo gets tucked in with a quilt and a bag full of class room supplies making sure she is secure!

If I show you THIS ----are you gasping and cheering yet??  And Terri, I’m sorry I took the photo without dusting off the dust and spider webs from the foot pedal! LOL!  We’ll call it early decorating for Halloween.  If the saying goes that “A rolling stone gathers no moss”  it stands to reason that “A rocking treadle gathers no webs!”  But I spent last week cleaning them off my long unused treadle base here in the basement, so I’m not worried about them!

If I show you THIS --- will you jump up and down with me?

I checked the Singer Website’s dating chart  and according to the serial number, this baby was made in 1893.  Holy MOLY.  And are you looking at those decals?

How about this glimpse? :cD

And this one!  Forget me knots on the belt guard!

This is the back side --- are you excited now?

The front side!

She is nearly perfect in every way.  Her movement was a bit stiff, but Terri said she’d had her a long long time and hadn’t used her ---so I knew that was going to take a bit of work.

We also discovered that the take-up lever had been snapped off.  Here's the broken off part taped to the face plate for safe keeping.  This worried me a bit, but I also had on my mind a spare parts machine that was waiting at home.  It had to my memory ---the same kind of take-up lever arrangement, and I crossed my fingers all the way home.  ((Dear Ila, your gifted old beat up machine has been worth its weight in gold for salvageable parts that keep other machines running!  Thank you thank you thank you!))

Close inspection of the parts machine and the part from the new machine showed that they “LOOKED” like they were the same part and would be interchangeable.  It took a lot of oil and some WD-40 to get the frozen up parts machine to let loose of the much-needed lever, and pretty soon DH was in on the act too.

Here they are!  The broken one ---and the replacement one from the parts machine.

The center holes where the big screw goes through was the only thing differing in size slightly --- see the newer one has a slightly bigger hole, but the screw head from the parts machine was also bigger to fit it!  A lot of monkeying and we replaced both the broken lever and the screw with the replacement lever and screw ---and wonder of wonders --- it went up and down like it was supposed to!

From that point on I began to clean and oil.  And when I felt everything was moving free and easy, I put the machine head into the treadle table.  It was time to see how it worked with the belt.  The belt was in fine shape, but slipping a lot and it was too loose to run the bobbin winder for sure– so we shortened it by 1/4”, drilled a new hole into the end and replaced the staple.  Tested it again….great!

Grainy picture, but it was taken by phone at night!

Would you believe the shuttle bobbin had THREAD on it?  I had no idea if the thread was any good still, but I was just going to sew on test scraps, so I changed the needle, threaded the machine….brought up the bobbin thread, and prayed!

IT SEWS!!  I only had to monkey with the tension just a bit and I think it’s only because the aurifil thread I put on top is a finer weight thread ----There is still a squeak in the moving parts of the foot pedal itself, I’ve oiled, but there is a determined squeak in there that will have to be dealt with.

1893?!??  I’m too tired to find out what model of machine this is.  I need a manual.  I need to know how to work this bobbin winder.  I have a couple extra long bobbins that came with it.  I just haven’t seen a winder wind this way.  The belt evidently goes in the little wheel thing to turn it to fill the bobbins. 

Another grainy picture.

This pic is for Terri, to  show her where her machine now resides!  I’m just THRILLED.  It’s right off the dining room, and I can see myself here this winter watching TV with the family while I treadle away.

1893.  She needs a name.  And I’m feeling brain dead.  DH’s grandmother was born in the 1890s.  Her name was Hannah.  She gave me my first cardboard quilting templates for a churn dash block ((before rotary cutters!))  when DH and I had only been married a year.   She was a quilter through and through.  And maybe, just maybe – I name this machine after her.  She lived until she was 104.  I think she would have gotten a huge kick out of the direction quilting has lead my life too.

Come New Years and 2013, this machine will be 120 years old.

And it is sewing for me to beat the band.  AWESOME!