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Sewing the seeds of creativity
By Kalea Hall
CANFIELD
Gary Little likes to tinker.
The 64-year-old Hermitage, Pa., resident’s tinkering led to a passion for sewing-machine toy tractors.
For the first time, Little is showing off his repurposed sewing machines at the 168th Canfield Fair in the Grange Building and the Arts and Crafts Building.
“My mind is tinkering all the time,” Little said. “I always had brainstorms. I put [the sewing machine] on my work bench and it just took off. It’s got tractor written all over it.”
His “winter hobby,” as he calls it, started about 10 years ago. He just thought one day that a sewing machine had the perfect build to be reformed into a tractor.
How? He keeps the sewing machine as is and grows it from there. He adds a spatula for the seat, a ketchup bottle as the engine, lawn-mower tires and pedal-tractor wheels, and he uses pie pans or pizza pans to form the fenders. Water-bottle caps suffice as the headlights.
He has about 14 done and 20 in the works.
The unique booth attracts people to come and take a first-hand look at the John Deere toy replica tractors, a breast cancer awareness tractor — his favorite, a Ford tractor, a Case Uncle Sam tractor, and a Case combine tractor made with a typewriter attached to the sewing-machine tractor.
The contour of the sewing machine just fits the tractor, he said. “The more you stare at them, it is like they move.”
He paints the tractors to his liking and adds dolls to sit in the tractor seats.
His sister, Janice Little, makes the clothes for the dolls.
“It’s genius,” said someone in the crowd at Little’s booth.
His hobby has become well-known by others to the point where people offer him sewing machines they would otherwise just throw away. He still picks up some from auctions, flea markets and garage sales. He can make one in a couple of weeks for the cost of not more than $100. He is now working on one that will move.
Despite the popularity of his tractors, Little will not sell them because “they are too sentimental.”
“They are like kids to me,” he said. “I love them.”
Both Janice and Gary sit outside the booth at the fair to talk with visitors about the display. After appearing in many antique tractor shows, the Canfield Fair became a dream for Gary. And now it is a dream he finally achieved.
“Everyone knows the Canfield Fair,” he said.
Gary reminds people to never throw anything away because it could have a second life.
“Get busy,” he said. Others “can make them, too.”