Sewing with a treadle machine

By: Margaret Mills, Board Member, Costume Museum of Canada

 My Mother had a sewing machine when I was little, a long time ago.

 The machine ran by rocking your feet on a fancy metal plate, called a treadle, at the bottom.

 My little brother liked anything mechanical, so he loved this machine, and when she was sewing and her feet rocked the treadle, he would get in her way, looking closely at the treadle, and the way it moved.

 He liked the thin rubber belt that connected the treadle to the wheel on top and made the needle move in and out through the fabric.

 Mum could fix a hole in the knee of my brother’s pants, or let down the hem of my skirt when I got too tall.

 The best thing she could do with the machine was to make new pyjamas for us every Christmas, and at Halloween, she made wonderful costumes for us.

  In grade 1, I won a prize at school for the best costume. I was a fairy princess all in pink!

 One day, my Mother started to teach me how to sew on her machine. We were going to have a new baby at our house and Mum need lots of diapers made. I learned how to make long straight hems, so that the edges would be smooth.

 Soon I was able to make other things, like nightgowns for the baby, and I even made an apron for myself!

 I learned how to be careful not to let the machine run backwards, or it would break the thread. When that happened, I needed to thread the machine carefully through all the little special places all over again.

 When I grew up, I got a sewing machine to make my own clothes, but it was much different. It was run by electricity and when my children watched me sew and make their costumes, there was no treadle to play on.

 My own little girl learned to sew too, and now I patch the holes in my grandson’s pants!

 

 

Author Margaret Mills is the narrator of the Heritage Fashion Review.

 

While you are here, consider making a financial donation to the Costume Museum of Canada.  The museum preserves one of the largest historical collections of apparel in Canada.  Donate online at http://www.costumemuseumcanada.com/

 

 

 

A 1950s Christmas

It seemed quite normal to me at the time, since post war times meant everyone was short of money to at least some degree, but with Medicare and Pharmacare not yet a reality in Canada, our family in the 1950’s could definitely have been considered poor.

My Mother had a very rare disease with left her both short of strength, and relying heavily on expensive medicines just to exist, but she never let that get in the way of raising her five children. I was the oldest and learned to be her right hand, helping with babies, meals and cleaning, but my favourite thing was the sewing machine and what it could do. Mum had been given an old Singer treadle machine by her Mother, and it was our mainstay for mending, cloth diaper making, (in those days we called them napkins), letting down hems, making over of hand-me-downs, and new clothes, when it became completely necessary. I learned to sew early, and remember sewing seams on fabric for diapers when a brother arrived a few months before my 9^th birthday.

Of course we did get a new pair of flannelette pyjamas most every Christmas from Mum and Dad (by way of that old treadle machine), and at least one item in our stocking along with a Japanese orange and a few “Christmas ribbon candies” from Santa, but the gift I remember most from those years was a new Brownie uniform. I had been allowed to join Brownies with all my friends in the fall, but even then, as a young child, I worried that as all the other girls completed their early requirements and were enrolled, and of course wore their new uniforms proudly, I joined with no uniform.

It seemed to me then that my Mother was quite blasé about my not having a uniform, and she reassured me that in time, I would have one. Nonetheless, I couldn’t see how that could happen, as I knew that we certainly had no money for something as non- essential as a Brownie uniform, but I trusted her that it would happen, even when week after week went by and I still went to Brownies in my school clothes!

It always seemed a miracle to me that on Christmas morning there would be some wonderful surprise, but you can imagine my total surprise and delight when that year, the enormous bulge in the stocking on Christmas morning turned out to be the longed for Brownie uniform! Obviously Mum had worked often into the night on the old machine after we children were all in bed, transforming crisp brown cotton into not only a perfect uniform, but a brand new one!

Even though the treasured uniform came as a gift from Santa, I was under no illusion about where the gift had actually originated, and I was anything but disappointed, Santa or no Santa, for I knew even then how hard my parents worked to make sure that my childhood was all that it could be.

–Margaret Mills is the commentator and co-ordinator of the Historic Fashion Review for the Costume Museum of Canada.

(Brownie uniform photo courtesy of Leslie’s Guiding History Site)

Tuesday Volunteers

We find such pretty things in the boxes! The cataloging begins on our first official Tuesday Evening Work Session (we haven’t come up with a catchy name yet).

We meet every Tuesday evening 5:00-9:00pm at our new temporary home at 301-250 McDermot Avenue. Please join us some evening if you want to handle history in white gloves.

Doing The Wash

As the commentator for the Costume Museum of Canada’s Historic Fashion Review, and we have done over 750 shows to date, I try to give the audience a sense of what it must have been like to live in and wear the clothing of a century or two ago. Few things epitomize everyday life of the era more quickly than showing a beautiful turn of the century white summer outfit, or child’s voile dress with my reminder to them of the old-fashioned “wash day” needed to keep that clothing clean!

Today we simply throw a load and a bit of detergent into the washer and then on into the dryer. Voila! clean clothes are available in a matter of minutes! For even our recent ancestors, the job was much more difficult and time-consuming.

Since the majority of Manitoba’s population was rural, rather than urban, and widespread electricity for household use in rural areas didn’t become a practical reality until after World War 2, washing the family clothing was a “hands on” proposition. In the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century, on a Monday wash day, wash water had to be hauled into the house from a well with a bucket. Family division of labour usually meant that this chore was taken on by the boys of the family. Wood would need to be chopped and brought in to feed the fire in a stove, which would heat the water in a copper boiler. That water then went into a tub, originally wooden, later metal, and clothing was plunged or stirred, and scrubbed on a washboard with a square of soap. After rinsing, the clothes were wrung out and taken to a clothesline to be hung out to dry, held in place by wooden clothespins. Winter was no exception, and I recall as a young person in the 50’s and 60’s bringing the “stiff as a board” frozen, and partially dried clothes into the house to finish drying on a clothes rack…preferably in front of the stove or heater. That took care of low winter humidity!

Even after electricity made washing machines a reality, it was the wringer washer which was most often used. My own mother used her wringer and rinse tub until the early 1970s!

Permanent press fabric was unknown until relatively recently, so the flat iron, or “sad” iron was heated on the stove for clothes pressing. Although I’m sure many women were not thrilled to be doing the washing, the term “sad” was only an old English term for heavy.

Although we have less than kind things to say these days about polyester double-knit, the introduction of this easy care fabric was a boon to the average housewife, since it required no ironing and it quickly gained popularity in the 50’s and 60’s.

Perhaps this summer as you slip on simple summer outfits, made of easy care fabrics, and then toss them in with the rest of the wash, you’ll remember your Grandparents who needed much more effort to stay looking fresh!

–Margaret Mills is the commentator and co-ordinator of the Historic Fashion Review for the Costume Museum of Canada. This article was originally published in the Headingley Times.

Fabulous Fabric Fridays – Silks

Fabulous Fabric Fridays – Swinging 60s

Fabulous Fabric Fridays – Resist Dyeing

Fabulous Fabric Fridays – Sparkly Shiny II

Fabulous Fabric Fridays – Paisley

Behind The Scenes!

 

 

Prepping for another Mystery Monday!