Okay, so some folks may have been born later, so for them, who was Rube Goldberg, and how would that relate to sewing machines...
http://rubegoldberg.com/
***CAUTION!!!** Anything you read here, can possibly fatally injure you (or worse!!)
It's possible that you will see careless use of powertools, insane methods of dealing with HI VOLTAGE, ideas that just don't make good sense to a reasonable person. That being said, the OP (me) has always been fascinated with unbelievably convoluted ways to accomplish things that have already been done, regularly, safely, and with little Hooplah by much simpler methods.
For instance, how can we handcrank something that has already been electrified? How can we convert to treadle power that which was already proven to work well off of Conn Ed?
How can we run the remaining guinea pigs on solar power (or bicycle generator, or ??) ? How can we make a really ugly, but simple base to stick 130 yr. old sewing machine heads that were once happily ensconced in functioning treadle bases, but now dispensed with on Ebay like old Beanie Babbies, and their bases doomed to support ferns on coffee shops? How can we find other ways of re-cycling what was once valuable, but now hidden for a giant smelly landfill?
Hope you'll submit your wackiest, most anochronistic, illogical solutions to problems that may not have been discovered yet.