A Treadlized Procrastinate

As many of you know I am a member of the on line treadle sewing machine group called TreadleOn. One of the nifty things about this group is that it encourages us to not only save orphaned and abused machines but to use them as well, so they have several quilt block exchanges through out the year. The exchanges are posted months in advance but like any self respecting procrastinator I waited to the weekend before the blocks were due to be mailed to begin working on them. I had the fabric, matter of fact, i purchased a bundle of fabrics while in Minnesota this summer... could I find them when the time was due... NO!!!

So anyway, this weekend I started sewing on the Century blocks, these blocks had to be made on a machine that was at least one hundred years old, the fabrics were Civil War reproductions or earlier. All my other TOBE's (TreadleOn Block Exchanges) were done on my handcrank sewing machines, no problems. The machine of my choice for this one came from my husband's family, the machine was his Granny Cook's. My mother in law gave it to me because she knew that I collect old sewing machines and would appreciate it. She'll be thrilled to see the pictures of the family machine back in action.

I started off with the assumption that I'd make one set of blocks, twelve pinwheel blocks... however, once I got the hang of treadling, I'd never done it before, I actually made 24 blocks and had a great time.

The machine suffered a few hours of operator errors, I am taking credit for the problems she was experiencing since she'd been at this sewing stuff a lot longer than me...she's been at it since 1908.... it had to be my fault, don't you think. Once my frustration level got to the breaking point I called in the reinforcements from the TreadleOn list and pleaded for assistance and encouragment. I got a flood of both. With the advice from them and a firm prayer I spun the hand wheel, off we went... making proper stitches.

Here are a couple of photos of my blocks...what do you think...