The next notable improvement in sewing machinery was that of the rotary bobbin, invented by A. B. Wilson, which was patented in 1852. This did away with the flying shuttle and simplified the machine considerably. It made the sewing machine comparatively quiet, thus adapting it for domestic use. In Wilson’s machine, a rotating hook passed through the loop of thread and carried it around the bobbin on which the lower thread was wound. Wilson also invented the four-motion feed for feeding the cloth under the needle. Sewing machines up to that time had been operated by hand, but Isaac Merritt Singer introduced a foot-power machine and by progressive business methods built up a thriving industry and did much to establish the sewing machine, not only at home, but abroad as well.
THE SINGLE-THREAD SEWING MACHINE
The single-thread machine was invented by a Virginia farmer who had never seen a sewing machine. James E. A. Gibbs had seen a picture of a sewing machine and, unaware of the fact that there was a shuttle carrying a second thread on the rear, or under side of the cloth, fell to puzzling over the problem of what happened to the thread carried by the needle through the cloth. Somehow, it seemed to him, the loop of thread must be held until the next stitch carried another loop of thread through it, thus forming a chain stitch. This led him to invent an ingenious revolving hook. With infinite patience he whittled out a model of his invention, and it is this hook that is the outstanding feature of the Wilcox and Gibbs machine.
MACHINE-MADE EMBROIDERIES
A notable modern development of the sewing machine is its adaptation to the making of embroideries and even laces. In the common domestic sewing machine the cloth is fed step by step under the needle, and the length of the step regulates the size or length of the stitches. The feed may be set for short or long stitches. It is evident that if a greater range of length of stitch were provided, and if, while the machine was operating, the stitch could be varied at will, not only in length but in the direction as well, it would be possible to work out elaborate patterns of embroidery. This is what is done on the power-driven embroidery machines. Like the original Howe machine, the cloth is held vertically and a series of needles are used which pass horizontally through the cloth. As the needle retreats, the thread it carries forms a loop on the rear or “wrong” side of the cloth, and through this a shuttle is driven which carries a thread wound upon a bobbin. Between stitches the cloth is moved this way and that, in accordance with a prearranged pattern, and thus the design is embroidered. A single machine may have several hundred needles and, as they all work in unison, each needle repeats the design. The arrangement is such that one needle starts where the next one leaves off, so that the embroidery is continuous. The shuttles which operate on the wrong side of the cloth are small, boat-shaped parts which the Swiss have named “schiffli” or “little ships,” and this name has come to be applied to the whole machine.
The guiding of the cloth to produce the required design is accomplished either by hand or automatically. In the hand-guided schiffli machine a skilled “stitcher” seated at one side of the machine operates a pantagraph, tracing an enlarged design mounted on a board before him. As he moves the lever vertically and horizontally the frame carrying the cloth is correspondingly moved before the needles. An expert stitcher can put a great deal of individuality into the work, which is impossible in the strictly automatic machine; accordingly the pantagraph is used for the finer grades of embroideries. In the automatic machines a perforated roll like that of a piano player is used. The perforations control the movements of the frame that carries the fabric.
FINE NEEDLEWORK BY MACHINE
These machines are of Swiss and German design, but American inventors have recently developed a machine for producing fine needlework which imitates very closely the work of the hand. In this machine the needle passes completely through the fabric as in ordinary hand sewing, but it does not have to be turned around for the return stitch because it is pointed at each end and has the eye in the middle. The needles are held by spring clips in a swinging frame. When the frame swings toward the cloth the needles are pushed through the fabric and their points are caught by spring clips in a frame on the opposite side. The latter frame draws the needles completely through and a set of hooks catch the thread and pull the stitch taut. The advantage of this type of machine is that it produces the same design on each side of the cloth; in other words, there is no “wrong” side to the embroidery. The design is controlled by a “stitcher” operating a pantagraphic system of levers and by skillful manipulation he can completely overcome the flat machinelike appearance of the automatic schiffli machine.
Laces are very ingeniously produced on schiffli machines by using the “burnt-out” system invented forty years ago by a German, named Beckel. This consists in the use of thread of a different material from that of the fabric, and after the embroidery is completed the fabric is removed either chemically or by the application of heat, leaving only the stitching, which forms a delicate lace. For instance, cotton thread may be embroidered on a groundwork of wool, or silk thread is used on a fabric of cotton. Laces made in this way are known as Plauen laces, taking their name from the city where Beckel invented the process, and they form a large part of the machine-made laces that are now so widely used.
