A sewing machine is a machine used to stitch fabric and other materials together with thread. Sewing machines were invented during the first Industrial Revolution to decrease the amount of manual sewing work performed in clothing companies. Since the invention of the first working sewing machine, generally considered to have been the work of Englishman Thomas Saint in 1790, the sewing machine has vastly improved the efficiency and productivity of fabric, clothing and needle industries.
Home sewing machines are designed for one person to sew individual items while using a single stitch type. Modern sewing machines are designed in such a way that the fabric easily glides in and out of the machine without the hassle of needles and thimbles and other such tools used in hand sewing, automating the process of stitching and saving time.
Industrial sewing machines, by contrast, are larger, faster, more complex, and more varied in their size, cost, appearance, and task.
The fabric shifting mechanism may be a workguide or may be pattern-controlled (e.g., jacquard type). Some machines can create embroidery-type stitches. Some have a work holder frame. Some have a workfeeder that can move along a curved path, while others have a workfeeder with a work clamp. Needle guards, safety devices to prevent accidental needle-stick injuries, are often found on modern sewing machines.
Read more about Sewing Machine: History and Development, Stitch Formation, Feed Mechanisms, Sewing Machine Needle
Famous quotes related to sewing machine:
“The sewing machine joins what the scissors have cut asunder, plus whatever else comes in its path.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“One has to look out for engineers—they begin with sewing machines and end up with the atomic bomb.”
—Marcel Pagnol (1895–1974)
“Their holders have always seemed to me like a woman who should undertake at a state fair to run a sewing machine, under pretense of advertising it, while she had never spent an hour in learning its use.”
—Jane Grey Swisshelm (1815–1884)