Toga Observations
 

I was fortunate enough to get invited to TreadleOns' Toga, the last one to be hosted by Dick Wightman last Saturday. It was an absolutely awesome day. I saw some great machines and learned a lot from some great people. Machines and parts were flying all day, I couldn't keep up with everything going on. And of course I forgot to take my camera. Two nice red head 66's were given away, a beautiful Damascus and her irons were part of the raffle(my friend Misha won it!) along with lots of other cool things.
Some of the machines I saw were a couple of 1950's Japanese Singers(15's I *think*, can't recall for sure now) with the round asian decal on the bed. Discussion of these came to the conclusion that they were probably made in the Pine factory since they have Simanco cast into the under side. There was the big 2 needle hemstitcher I mentioned in another thread. Lots of other Singers, including a rare black aluminum 99 and 2 machines with the wings decals, a 24 treadle, a couple 12's, oh I can't remember now what all else there were for Singers. Lots of them.
There was a Weed, a couple of Wilcox and Gibbs, a couple of badged Nationals, a few Japanese machines including a clone original hand crank badged either National or Standard(can't remember now but I might be able to get a pic since another friend of Mishas' bought it) and a Brother machine that Dick gave me(how awesome is that!?). There were others too, I just can't remember them all. I was on overload by the days end, I really wish I would have remembered my camera.
Have any of you seen the Utube video of the woman sewing with a hand crank machine while driving a big tractor? She was there and showed the quilt she started in the tractor, it's really beautiful. Besides people from Washington being there, people came from Montana, Oregon, California and Reno. Probably other places too, those are just the ones I can remember.

Cari

Yay! Sounds like you and everyone else had a very good time.

Sounds like a great time!

Cap't Dick gave me my treadle and cabinet. It was a wonderful day, he got out a lot of his puppets and put on a little show for us, had lots of insider info on today's crop of puppeteers. The kindness of strangers, right? You couldn't part me from that machine with dynamite.

Yes the puppets! He also showed some of his bears and told some great parachuting and kite stories about them, and showed some of us his trains, including his steam engine. And the instruments! Gorgeous! What a multi talented man. The machine he gave me may end up as a parts machine, not sure yet I haven't even brought it in from the car.

Cari

Oh how fun Cari! It sounds wonderful. I hope to get to attend a TOGA some day. I had such a good time meeting everyone that gathered at Steve's get together.

I'd like to learn more about treadles.

Sounds like it was a great time Cari! I didn't know there were any TOGAs in this area until you told me you were attending one.
Rodney

I knew that Dick Wightman started TreadleOn and hosted the Togas in this area but I had read that he retired when he turned TreadleOn over to Cindy Peters. Apparently something happened or for whatever reason there wasn't a host for this years event so at the last minute(5 weeks out) he agreed to do it one more time. I knew nothing about it until my friend invited me to go with her. I'm glad I went but sad that Cap'n Dick won't be doing it any more. Hopefully someone else will be able to step up and keep it going here.

Cari