My Newest machine

As an experiment in blogging, I'm going to pretend I have readers and talk about my "new" (to me) sewing machine.

Here she is:

A Singer 66 "Redeye" Treadle!!!!

 Oooooo!

 (With flash)

 (Without flash)

Ahhhhhhhh!

 Ohhhhhhhh!

Some decal damage on the back - not done by me. I damaged the "Singer Manufacturing Co." decal on the top (notice there are no pictures of it *whistles innocently) When I first brought her home the "eye" next to the "r" in "Singer" was absolutely covered in black schmutz - I couldn't even see if the decal was still there at all!  I knew there was supposed to be one, because I had scrutinized pictures of other people's machines on the internet. So, I took a leap of faith and started scrubbing (carefully) with Murphy's Oil Soap. Eventually I started to see the shape of the decals emerge from underneath the crud. Slowly, slowly the colors started to come out. The large decal near the belt on the pillar was also almost completely obliterated with inky black yuk. I don't know what the substance was, but it was gross - and stubborn to clean!   Oddly enough the aforementioned decal that I did damage did not happen in the cleaning process - it happened when I tried to polish the machine with car wax. One gentle swipe and the words smeared together. I stopped polishing that area immediately.  The words are still legible, they are just a bit "squishy" around the edges now.  I finished up my polishing with a layer of sewing machine oil. I think she looks pretty snazzy overall! I don't really mind all of her bumps and scrapes. Actually, I sort of like them - they are a visual record of the years of labor this old gal has been put through.

Oh - she also came with a perfectly good leather belt!

 There's still some weird schmutz on this bed decal. I haven't decided if I care enough to work on it. If you look closely, you can see the left edge of the decal partially disappear under a layer of.....old oil? A bad paint touch-up job? Fireplace soot? Sin and hate?

BONUS!  Drawers with GOODIES!! (I don't know what all of the feet do yet - and some won't fit this machine....I will keep you updated)

...and the tiniest thimble I have ever seen! What small, dainty hands the previous owner must have had. What big, weird, pink, meathooks I have!  (ignore the dirty nails - I never said I was a hand model...)

Did you know you can date these by looking up the serial number?  Come to find out, this baby was made in June of 1920. Pretty amazing!  Check out these terrible photos of the beautiful, balanced stitches she makes:

Front:

 And back:

 I was worried treadling would be complicated (I'm not exactly known for my grace and coordination), but it it actually much easier than I thought!  Sewing with it was slow - very start-and-stop as I haven't gotten a rhythm down yet. That being said, I was able to make a swell pair of curtains for my bathroom "refresh" (it's not really a full-blown remodel - that's another story for another day)

Here is a picture of the curtains in question. The fabric was fifty cents from the local St. Vincent du Paul, the lining was an old curtain that cost me $1.50 at goodwill. Not bad for two bucks, eh?  I admit I did run the fabric through my serger first.  The curtain fabric is vintage, silky, slubby, and frays like crazy! The treadle is a straight stitch, and I don't like taking chances with my seams. Sewing costumes for the festival has instilled in me a need to engineer everything I make within an inch of its life! This is because costumes at festival take a beating and need to be able to withstand a hurricane (literally and figuratively).

I haven't named her yet - Bettie, Jayne, Marilyn, Liz, Doris, and Audrey are all taken by various bits of technology (Chromecast, laptop, tablet, etc.) and my dressmaker form (that's Doris).  Actually, I haven't named any of my machines yet - seems strange since I still have the machine I learned to machine-sew on (a Singer Scholastic - coincidentally built the same year I was).

Well, thanks for sitting through another post! If you happen to read this, feel free to write me a message in the "comments" section.