My husband was given an old sewing machine dated about around mid 1850's
which he did a small repair job on. That sews with a chain stitch, rather
than the running stitch of todays sewing machine.
He downloaded information about it from the internet and it says the
original was made in wood by a farmer trying to help his wife repair the
clothes.
Sue T, Dorset UK
On Jul 1, 2006, at 12:53, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
We all need to remember that when what we call sewing machines were first
invented, much emphasis was placed on the features for embroidery and
lace
techniques,
Are you certain-sure of that? I come from a long line of
taylors/dressmakers (great-grandpa, grandpa, Mother, and myself before BL
"struck") who used sewing machines all the way from the "push the wheel by
hand", through treadle, to electric. And the sewing machine my Mother saw
me use here (in 1977) -- which could embroider, make a buttonhole with a
single "click" as well as overcast a seam -- was a _novelty_ to her.
The sewing machines she knew -- as a child and young woman -- all made a
"straight" rather than a "fine" stitch, and the first electric she had,
which could overcast (tight zig-zag, actually, not a "true" overcast) as
well as sew in a straight line was a revelation. That was in 1962. The
machines which did the fancy stuff like embroidery were _separate_ from
the "daily bread" of a sewing machine (and much more expensive, too), all
the way from when she was a kid (born 1910? 1912? In between? Nobody knew
for certain, but she said she was apprenticed at 11 or 12. After WWI)
So, the embroidery machines may have sprouted at the same time as the
"plain sewing" ones, but they were two different species. Embroidery might
have been the most labour -intensive aspect of sewing, but it had always
been in a class of its own; the same person didn't do both. As a matter of
fact, my Mother, apprenticed to a dressmaker ("we had one customer who was
a prostitute" she used to tell me "and she wanted her dresses very fancy
both in cut and in top-ornamentation") said that they sewed all their
dresses on machines and then gave them out to be "ornamented" by hand;
"only the factories could afford the embroidery machines"). The same held
true when I was growing up...
Of course, that was Poland, which was about 50yrs behind US as regards
technological developments (my MIL and I had *precisely the same* ideas on
how to make pasta, wash clothes, etc, when I first got here; we diverged,
as I continued to learn and she continued to bitch about the lost past <g>
My husband is 25yrs my senior, and she was 25 when she bore him, which is
my basis for the "50yrs behind" calculation)
I still tend to believe what my Mother told me about the sewing machines,
because it makes sense:
_Many_ women would have wanted a plain-vanilla sewing machine, on which
they could run up -- cheaply -- clothes for themselves and their family,
but those who wanted to use a sewing machine that way, could not afford a
plain-vanilla _and_ a fancy one, especially since their fancy work was
limited to the wedding dress and the _first_ layette. You got more value
for your zloty (or dollar) if you concentrated on the basics; you could
run up the garment quickly and _then_ waste time on -- hand-made --
ornamentation (remember, too, that, until 1960 or so, most women knew how
to ply a needle in the course of everyday life. It's rapidly becoming
another "lost art" <g>).
It is possible to buy reprints of
the early instruction booklets that came with machines.
What's "early"? And, does anyone know how well those early "combination"
machines sold? As opposed to the two -- independent (sewing and
embroidery) -- ones?
--
Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/
Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland)
-
To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line:
unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.9.8/380 - Release Date: 30/06/2006
-
To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line:
unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
