Thanks K it is a 1950's repro of an 1850's machine. I bought it at a yard sale when Sara was about 7 or 8 (her DD Rachel's age now!) for $25. That's 27 yrs ago and I use it pretty much every day. It does have it's indiosyncrosies and it drives me nuts sometimes but I would have a hard time sewing on anything else. It had a knee pedal instead of a foot pedal.
I have 2 other more regular machines and I asked Rachel if she wanted to use a foot pedal or the knee pedal and she chose the knee. But she is so small that it is more comfortable for her to use her hand to control the pedal than her knee. She has a hard time controlling the speed tho so we ended up doing it my hand on hers. Otherwise she gets it going way to fast and the material spins under the needle!! LOL She sews with one hand on the fabric and one hand under the machine on the handle of the knee pedal. I was impressed it only took her about a half hour to get the hang of cutting with a template and rotary cutter. We did some hand on hand because she wasn't putting enough pressure on the blade but she asked to do it by herself and she got the technique pretty quickly. I figured she wouldn't be able to keep the blade close to the template because when she cut out some strips she was all over the place with the blade but I only did about 3 or 4 cuts with her hand on hand in cutting out with the template and then she was doing it by herself. I think that is pretty good for someone who has never done any sewing of any kind! Course I'm not proud of her!! LOL