Thanks sap and Nancy,
It seems to me that the treadle would be perfect for mending for me. Starting and stopping a stitch line in the right place has been the most difficult part of making windsocks on my treadle, whereas starting and stopping wouldn’t be nearly as critical when mending.
sap, thanks for sharing how your Grandmother did it on her machine. It’s probably the way I will approach it.
I keep thinking about the Youtube video that I saw that has a young woman making designer handbags on a treadle in a vendor’s booth for a demonstration. She was doing hand-guided embroidery and using a class 15 machine with what looked like the regular straight stitch foot on it. She really was putting down the stitches!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tcy2dse68M
Nancy, I really like handcranks and have several of them, but for mending/darning I want to use both hands to guide my garment. Your combination handcrank/treadle setups give you both precision stitches when wanted, as well as large quantities of stitches when needed. Good idea.
CD in Oklahoma