the.com/sewing machine
the machine that stitched the Industrial Revolution into wearable shape and put tailors out of work.
means A mechanized device that joins fabric with thread, automating the stitch that hands once made one loop at a time.
from A plain compound of "sew" and "machine." "Sew" descends from Old English "siwian," to stitch — rooted in a Proto-Indo-European source "*syu-" meaning to bind or join, possibly a distant cousin of "suture" and "seam." "Machine" came through French from Latin "machina," a device or contrivance, itself borrowed from Greek "mēkhanē," a means or expedient. The phrase itself is a 19th-century invention, born alongside the thing it names, when the act of sewing was first wedded to a mechanism.
- Riot bait
- Angry French tailors destroyed early machines in 1841
- Genius trick
- Needle eye sits at the point, not the top
- Patent war
- Singer and Howe fought a brutal courtroom battle
- Speed demon
- Modern industrial models hit 5,000 stitches per minute
- Underbelly
- Created factory sweatshops almost the moment it arrived
singer model 15 — iconic treadle machine first produced in 1851, still manufactured today
janome memory craft 6500 — computerized embroidery machine released in 1990s, used by professional quilters
bernina 1008 — swiss-made industrial-grade machine used in fashion houses and tailoring since 1960s