The Past Meets the Present at Needle and Axe Off-Grid Threadworks

Living without electrical hookups often comes with compromises, but when Jane Hyman and her partner decided to commit to off-the-grid living in 2016, there was never a question of whether she would give up sewing with a machine as they settled into life up the North Fork.

Hyman is the owner and operator behind Needle and Axe Off-Grid Threadworks, a small business under which she has produced a variety of handmade waxed canvas products, including roll-top bags, zippered cases and bear spray holsters since 2021. Part of what sets Hyman apart is that her production process relies on a device from another century.

The act of sewing has been a part of her world going back as far as she can remember. She first learned on her grandmother’s old electric sewing machine. In her family, the thread of sewing can be traced from her maternal grandmother, to her mother, down to her and her cousins. Hyman sees her mother and grandmother as having accrued the kind of knowledge and experience with sewing (and, in her grandmother’s case, quilting) that can seemingly produce an answer to any question.

But when Hyman found a method to continue sewing without electricity and sought her mother’s advice, she was at a loss. Working a treadle sewing machine, it seemed, was a skill that escaped even her mother’s wide-ranging expertise.

The old treadle sewing machines function through the interplay between a belted wheel, and a treadle mechanism situated below the machine and tabletop. The New York inventor Isaac Singer is credited with inventing the most popular model of the treadle sewing machine model back in the 1850s, and many of the surviving tabletop treadle machines still bear his name.

Hyman acquired her first Singer after finding a Craigslist posting in Wisconsin. Her second, she said, her mother-in-law came across at an estate sale in Illinois. The machine was so beautiful and in such good condition, that Hyman and her partner made a visit and drove it up to Montana. When it’s not in use, there’s an original wooden case that covers the old machine.

The first machine Hyman acquired sat there for “awhile” as she worked up the courage to try and learn. Eventually, she turned to the internet, and subsequently YouTube, and started to figure out the best way to use it.

She compares it to driving a manual car versus an automatic. “At first you feel like, ‘What do I do and when do I do it?’ But once you get the hang of it, it feels natural.’”

While the namesake treadle part of the machine is important, it’s not just one’s feet that helps power the machines. They take an extra hand, too. The belted wheel that runs between the treadle and the machine itself needs to be turned by hand to essentially prime it before a sewer begins to work their foot below. That means that when Hyman is sewing on her machines, she’s relegated to using her left hand to guide the fabric, her right hand to work the wheel, and her foot to pump the treadle.

Still, she’s not exactly itching to make like Bob Dylan and go electric. At this point, Hyman said she prefers a treadle machine because of the meditative state of mind that operating the machine now puts her in. On any given day, she’ll be pedaling and sewing away in her workshop, a small two-level structure framed by larch and birch trees, and made from reclaimed decking boards. It’s a peaceful place for her to create, and she’s allowed her line of products to expand naturally as the need comes up in her own life. That is, for example, how she started making bear spray holsters.

She wasn’t satisfied with the regularly available ones that eventually stretch out because of their elasticized material. Likewise, they’re often configured to be worn on a belt, which wasn’t how Hyman preferred to wear hers. So she made her own, with accents of waxed cotton cloth, in various patterns depicting, for example, flowers, or topographic maps. The holsters also have an adjustable buckle that can work with a belt, or for example, hip straps. Sometimes people chuckle at first when they see the bear spray holsters, but Hyman has seen quite a few people come around on the spot and buy one.

“I think it’ll always ebb and flow,” she said of her range of offerings. “I usually kind of make something that I feel is a necessity because something’s not working and not fitting my needs.”

She made a backpack for a relative last fall, and said she’s interested in making more down the road. She’s also been experimenting lately with natural dyes, something she said she learned more about after taking a class at The Making Place in Columbia Falls. Her regular lineup of products includes chalk bags, roll-top bike bags, sling bags, and zippered pouches. She hand waxes the cotton parts of her creations. She gravitates towards waxed canvas because it doesn’t need to be ironed, which is another way to cut out electricity from her production process. She also appreciates it for the fact that it’s not plastic, and can be re-waxed for a fresh waterproofed finish.

For her zippered pouches and tote bags, she’s implemented a design in which mountain faces made in the style of a quilt square image adorn the products. It’s a design that she attributes to her grandmother’s passion for quilting.

Growing up, Hyman said she would sew things like doll’s clothes, or hem and adjust her own clothes when she was too impatient to wait for her mom. At 15, she designed and made her first chalk bag for climbing. That’s why her brand logo, and name, incorporates the image of a climbing axe and a sewing needle.

Eventually she started bartering and trading with friends and acquaintances, as she continued to experiment with different designs and creations. She also made gifts for family and friends, and the positive feedback continued to come in steadily.

Still, it wasn’t a full-time venture, at least at first. Initially, Hyman worked full-time landscaping in the summers, while fitting in an arts show here and there as time allowed. The art shows were successful, so she cut her landscaping down to part-time work, which helped balance out her sewing work.

“And then, finally, I was like, ‘I don’t think it’s super crazy to just take the leap and do this full time,’” she said.

Despite that expanded commitment, Hyman is still determined to do things the right way. Explaining the tools that she uses to get the job done, she points toward an object that almost looks like a miniature, horizontally oriented lint roller. It’s called a roll press, and it’s used to press a completed seam down, before sewing another one. The process minimizes wrinkling.

“When quilters come into my booth at shows and they say that there are good lines or good seams, I’m like, ‘Oh yes, they have the eye,’” she said.

In general, Hyman indicated that people who buy her work seem to find value in the chance to acquire something that wasn’t mass-produced.

“I think people do really appreciate handmade things. Now everything’s from Amazon. They’re so separated from everything that they see someone and they’re like, ‘Oh, you made that, and you’re excited about that and you’re passionate about that.'”

For more information go to https://www.needleandaxe.com/.

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