My planned project - and some questions

[Pleater]

I am 'Pleater' due to my making of English smocks, and I constructed the flat parts using either the old Singer treadle, or a hand cranked 'Gamages' table top model.

Both machines were perfectly happy to work on small margins - I joined the pieces wrong side together with a quarter inch seam, then turned then right sides together and enclosed the edge with a second line of stitching, which is how the standard 5/8ths on an inch seam allowance came about, I suspect.

When properly put together, clean and oiled, then adjusted to suit the sewing you are doing there is nothing like the old Singer treadle for eating up the seams.
As you have such fine control of the mechanism you can, with a bit of practice, sew continuously sorting out minor problems on the fly, where with an electric driven one you'd need to stop and maybe unpick, or have some pieces which can't be rescued, with the treadle your output is usually better in many ways.

Anne the Pleater