Kansas Historical Museum

Once or twice a year we go to the  Museum of Kansas History in Topeka,   https://www.kshs.org/p/kansas-museum-of-history/19578

On Kansas day we get to meet a huge crowd of kids from across the state. 1,2000 to 1,400 kids come through, Mostly they are grade school and Jr. High kids. We pull in extra helpers to meet the demand

Some kids walk on by, many stop and are fascinated. Parents and teachers sometimes make a seam if they happen to hit at a slower time.  Some kids swing by and do it a few times.  The sneaky ones go to a different operator each time. Because of time limits we can't do treasure pouches, we just have them sew a seam across a folded piece of fabric.  Some get creative with that and have done a monogram.

getting around, gear and carts

When we do demos we often will take 4 sewing machines, 1 pennyfarthing, multiple tables,  a cart, folding chairs, a little step, a canopy and sewing supplies. Loading a car is a 3D tetris game,

At the Mother Earth News fair, we knew we would be traveling a distance from the car and over some interesting obstacles.  A church trolly from  the funeral industry provided a great fold up base with big wheels. Then the cart acted as a second table.  When I saw the trolly  at an antique store I knew we had to have it.  Iris wasn't so sure, till I got it all together.

The Kansas Historical Museum loans us a cart and provides chair and tables.  Yay for them

Other hand cranked items.

Other hand cranked toys. These have not traveled yet, but it may happen in the future.

The first one here is a rotary cutter for roll up window shades. The Star company started in 1907 and is still making modern versions of the same product.

This  is a Craftsman breast drill. We were quite surprised to find a level on it.

 

 

 

 

Torque vs. Speed can be adjusted here

 

 

 

2 speeds can be chosen here.

 grindstone

 clamp loose

Sharpen your tools anyone?

 

Brother LS-2125i

Leon has been having fun servicing my daughter's Brother LS-2125i. It is one of the new machines we have dealt with. It was purchased about 1999-2000. The machine does a beautiful stitch but has not been used nor serviced for a good 10 years. Here you will see it "with the hood off."

What do the Merry Cranks crank?

We are the Merry Cranks. We demonstrate  (foot cranked) bicycles, particularly the

replica pennyfarthing,  and hand crank sewing machines. We keep our eyes open for other low-tech materials that we might like to demonstrate. I found a popcorn popper at at  thrift shop the other day and Leon immediately went, "It's a hand crank!"

Our adventures began with bicycles. Leon is an avid collector of older bikes. Two of his prizes are the replica pennyfarthing and an 1890s lady's bike with wooden rims and wooden hand grips. We call her the Grand Dame. We enjoyed taking the pennyfarthing to living history events where children could see it, and maybe get their pictures taken sitting on it. Parents ask questions about why the bike had the big wheel and how it was used. Leon hasn't been stumped by a question yet!

Living history events mean period garb. That is no problem. I like to to sew. Sewing brought a maintenance problem. The Singer Featherweight I inherited from my Mom started skipping stitches.  I tried to fix it and made things worse. Leon...? He knew nothing about sewing machines, and he sure didn't want to ruin my mother's heirloom, but I persisted. He read the owner's manual and watched a few You Tube videos. VOILA! He fixed my machine and he was hooked. We started collecting older sewing machines as well as bicycles.

Our first "gig" demonstrating sewing machines was Earth Day at the Kansas History Museum.  My granddaughter was recruited to help us because we knew we would be demonstrating to kids in classroom quantities. We didn't realize 1600 students would visit that day! I had prepared 2000 pairs of fabric squares for the students to use as they sewed a seam on one of our three hand crank machines. When the day was done, only three scraps of fabric remained. Some students had visited more than once! 

We have the demonstrations down to a science now. You might find us at any event in eastern Kansas showing both sewing machines and bicycles. If it is a large venue, like the musuem, we still do small scraps of fabric. If we visit a more leisurely event we take 4x6" inch pieces of fabric that can be turned into Treasure Bags. We have seen repeat visitors who have confided to us that they still have their treasure bags. Keep an eye out. You might see us.