History of Sewing Machines

Hand sewing is an art form that is over 20,000 years old. The first sewing needles were made of bones or animal horns and the first thread was made of animal ligament. Iron needles were invented in the 14th century. The first eyed needles appeared in the 15th century.

Isaac Singer invented the up-and-down motion mechanism, and Allen Wilson developed a rotary hook shuttle.

Sewing machines did not go into mass production until the 1850's, when Isaac Singer built the first commercially successful machine. Singer built the first sewing machine where the needle moved up and down rather than the side-to-side and the needle was powered by a foot treadle.

Classification of Lockstitch Sewing Machine

Lockstitch sewing machine can be divided into four main parts :

1.Thesewing head

2.Thehorizontal arm

3. The vertical arm

4. The machine bed

1. The Sewing Head :

The sewing head is the main sewing part of the machine, it contains various sewing element such as the needle bar, pressure bar & take up lever.

2. The Horizontal Arm :

The horizontal arm connects the sewing head and the vertical arm of a machine. It contains the arm shaft, which sends movements from the balance wheel to the various moving parts in the sewing head.

3. The Vertical Arm :

The vertical arm contains the shaft and belts of connecting rods which send movements from the horizontal arm shaft to the various sewing mechanisms in the machine bed.

4. The Machine Bed :

The machine bed is the part of the machine situated beneath the sewing head, the horizontal arm and the vertical arm, the main function of the machine bed is to support the materials to be sewn and to provide the mounting points for those moving parts.

Stitch

Stitch: Loop or loops of one or more threads, when bound with each other, either by interlacing, intralooping, interlooping or combination of those when sewing fabric, each unit of such configuration is called stitch.

Interlacing,Interlooping & Intralooping

Interlacing: During stitching, when one loop of one thread passes over another loop of another thread, it is called interlacing.

Interlooping: When loop of one thread passes through the loop of another thread, it is called interlooping.

Intralooping: When a loop of one thread passes through the loop of same thread during sewing, it is called intralooping.

Interlacing Interlooping Intralooping

Stitches are of 70 types:

All these types of stitches are grouped in 6 classes. According to British Standard, the types are:

1: Stitch class-100(Single thread chain stitch).

2: Stitch class200(Hand stitch).

3: Stitch class-300(Lock stitch).

4: Stitch class-400(Multi thread chain stitch).

5: Stitch class-500(Over edge stitch).

6: Stitch class-600(Covering chain stitch).