Because the pieces of Mammie’s treadle cabinet were beyond repair, I’ve been collecting the cheapest Singer cabinet parts I’ve been able to find.\u00a0 I wasn’t sure these parts would work with the National machine but National cabinet parts are near impossible to find (or afford).\u00a0 I didn’t want to spend a lot of money in case the Singer parts required radical modification.\u00a0 Thankfully (for me) there are lots of cheap bits and pieces available on eBay\u00ae.<\/span><\/p>\n Since I’m on sabbatical from cleaning the National, I decided to use the irons with a different machine head.\u00a0 I’d already purchased enough Singer bits to assemble a complete cabinet, so I thought a Singer head would be the wisest next purchase.\u00a0 I’ve been observing price increases since I’ve made other vintage machine purchases, so I figured I should get a treadle head while the getting is good.\u00a0 There are many available but I’d hoped to find something with ‘meaning’.\u00a0 I found just the one! When I was a toddler, my mother owned a Singer model 66 treadle machine.\u00a0 I often sat under that machine and worked the treadle with my little hands as she fed fabric through the machine.\u00a0 When I was finally tall enough to stand with one foot on the treadle peddle and my nose just over the table edge to see the needle, I was allowed to run scrap fabric through the machine.\u00a0 I made lots of doll blankets, mudpie cup towels and playhouse curtains.<\/span><\/p>\n I found what I felt was a bargain for the right machine.\u00a0\u00a0 There is no rust and the identical decals to my mom’s are in good shape.\u00a0 I tested it and she sews fine without adjustments.\u00a0 She was also manufactured May 19, 1925, the same year as Mammie’s National machine.<\/span><\/p>\n I assembled the cabinet and was only required to make a few modifications.\u00a0 In order to align the belt between the machine and treadle, I had to off-center the cabinet top.\u00a0 No biggie!\u00a0 In order for the center drawer to fit, I was forced to hang the side drawer frames further away from the irons, making it impossible to use the drawer frame hooks.\u00a0 No one will ever notice.\u00a0 When the machine top and lid were shipped, the hinges were damaged so I replaced them with other vintage hinges.\u00a0 Still no big deal.\u00a0 The biggest deal came when adding the cabinet underbelly and back (one unit).\u00a0 The belt didn’t align with the underbelly, requiring some modification.\u00a0 It only shows for small dogs and very<\/span> short people and the dogs don’t seem to notice.<\/span><\/p>\n The cabinet back didn’t hang low enough to reach And now, I would like to present…….<\/span><\/p>\n FRANKENTREADLE!!!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n IT’S ALIIIIIIVVVEEEEE!!!<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n It’s shabby-chic without that little bit of puke in my mouth!\u00a0 It’s steampunk without the steam or punk or weird hair cut!\u00a0 Someday, I may refinish the cabinet to make the individual parts more closely match but at the moment, I like it this way! \u00a0 Until then, I CAN SEW!!!<\/span><\/p>\n Shirl<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I GIVE UP (for the time being)!!\u00a0 I want to sew on a treadle machine NOW and IF Mammie’s machine ever sews again, it will be months\/years before it will.\u00a0 At the moment, I’m overwhelmed by the amount of work still left to do on it.\u00a0 I’ll probably invest in a sonic parts cleaner (continue reading…) <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1693"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1693"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2061,"href":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1693\/revisions\/2061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"66](\"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/66-head.jpg\")
<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/span><\/a> to the treadle brace.\u00a0 There was nothing I could figure out to modify the wood that wouldn’t look awful so I used some carriage bolts, washers and nuts along with the unused drawer frame hooks.\u00a0 It’s not the most beautiful solution but will look better after I blacken the bolts with shoe polish or Magic Marker.\u00a0 DH says it looks like something a GIRL would do, but hey, I qualify!\u00a0 He offered no better solution!\u00a0 At least the hooks are genuine vintage Singer parts!\u00a0 OK, I admit thankfully this is the back of the cabinet and who is going to notice besides those same small dogs and very<\/span> short people?!<\/span><\/p>\n<\/a>