The dining room's Victorian tree was taken down last week and the real tree in the salon was taken down this past weekend. I wanted the dining room window back and the salon tree was getting very dried out, it was no longer a joy to look at, with drooping limbs and ragged edges. But it was a wonderful tree while it was up.
It is nice to have the windows back. The silver tree in the kitchen is still up and I light it every day; it may well stick around until Candlemas. Much of the other decor is also still in place, except for the Santa collection. The imagery of Santa fades quickly after Christmas, faster than the greenery.
Now that we are quite properly into winter, with all the big seasonal chores out of the way, I'm looking at my restoration projects. I have 2 treadle sewing machines from the 1870s, a pump organ, and two typewriters from the first decade of the 1900s to restore.
The pump organ is one of the very first antiques I ever bought, purchased soon after I graduated high school. I recovered it when I moved back to NH ten years ago. It had some work done on it some years ago but last year I decided to give it a good cleaning and adjustment. I got as far as removing the coupling action and cleaning up the connecting rods but stopped due to autumn chores--mostly moving and stacking wood. I will finish the organ this year (I hope!) so that it will be playable again by next Christmas.
But I'm turning my attention to the sewing machines first. One is a bent needle Wheeler & Wilson dating from 1872 and the other is a Howe dating from around 1874. I found them together last summer in an old house that hadn't been touched since the 1930s. The place was packed full of very old items including a huge printing press that must have weighed tons. Believe me, if I had the space for it I'd have seriously considered buying it. It was beautiful. At the time the house was closed up, it had a general store and post office on the first floor. The fixtures are still there and they are beautiful to see.
Both sewing machines were covered in rust and both were frozen. I spent enough time cleaning them last summer to get them moving again, and with some tweeking, actually got the Howe to make a few stitches. Today I worked on lubricating the Howe and getting a drive belt attached. The entire iron works needs a thorough going over, probably with Rust-oleum to begin with, they are very rusty.
Elias Howe Jr. was the first person to patent a lock-stitch sewing machine, in 1846. Before this, he worked in the textile factories in Lowell, MA. I visited the textile museum in one of the old Lowell mills several years ago. A fabulous exhibit with some real working looms.
The Howe as it arrived at my place last summer:
You can see how small the head is... it's so cute! Sadly all the decoration has been lost on this one and some of the Japanning is worn off as well. I'm not sure yet how I will deal with the bare spots, I've read of a car product that might work and will look into it.
For cleaning the wood veneer, I use Gojo (the one without pumice--very important). It's a hand cleanser used by mechanics and can be found in auto parts stores. It's great for getting off old grime and dirt. Then I wash with Murphy's Oil soap and dry it. For now I'm following this cleaning with Old English wood conditioner and cleaner. It does a nice job of evening out a splotchy finish. I want to do some tests with a mixture of boiled linseed oil and something else which I have forgotten and need to look up. (I'll get back to this in a future post.)
This short little video is from this afternoon after I got it to run via the drive belt. The thread is not threaded through the needle, I was simply testing whether it would run via the treadle. Note: bird noises... (Caution: the volume may be loud!)
A pic from Lowell, MA textile mill some years back:
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