Friday, August 12, 2011

Introducing Lady Laura Parker

My mom arrived last week for a visit. She brought with her my great grandmother's antique Singer treadle. It was in need of some restoration, but overall in nice condition. My mom, husband and I worked together to restore it as best we could. It had 108 years of dust and goo on it.

This picture is of the assisted lift assembly that folds the machine down into the lid and helps lift it out when the lid is open. Very very dirty.

Some of the pieces here, the top of the lid, the drawer "baskets" and a couple of the drawers. Notice how dark the drawer faces are. Almost black. Grandma was a smoker.

The rest of the parts. My husband took off everything for  a proper refinish. My mom restored all of the wood. She is amazing! On the chair are the other 2 drawers, a piece of the top and the wide drawer. Under the glass table is the large top piece and the small top piece. The box looking piece is the one that holds the sewing machine when it is folded down. 

Craig was so careful taking everything apart. Great job!

Most of the pieces are here, looking lovely and ready to be reassembled. My mom stripped off the old finish, then stained and varnished everything.

I repainted the gold details on the iron stand.

The top piece, it was water damaged at some point. The dark part gets covered by the machine surround pieces.

Lady Laura herself, a Singer 27-4 from 1903. Originally my great grandmother's (Laura Parker,) then my grandma and my mom, now mine. Even my boys have sewn a bit on this making 5 generations of use. Craig got her running right away and she's lovely. A new treadle belt is on the way, but the original works somewhat. 

All finished, isn't she beautiful! We cleaned all the brass handles, screws, hinges etc with brasso. It's amazing what came off those. I can see myself doing a lot of quilting by this window in the winter. It's North facing so we get light but not direct light. Perfect.


The drawers were so dark that none of these details were visible before.  I wish I had taken better before pictures. It's truly been an amazing restoration, and so nice that we all did it together.
 Beauty.

Thank you so much for reading and looking at all of these pictures. I hope I've inspired some of you to find and restore/use your family's treadle. There are so many out there that need love and this is the perfect time of year for refinishing. Don't put it off any longer.

1 comments:

MommyOntheEdge said...

WOW, you and your family did an AMAZING job of restoring that, what a beautiful and useful piece of history.

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