INGENUITY AND LUXURY 



and short thread. It was designed primarily for 

 sewing leather, and was made so that an awl pierced 

 a hole for the passage of the needle. The material 

 to be sewed was held in clamps, and fixed in a rack 

 which could be moved both ways, alternately, to pro- 

 duce a back stitch, or allowed to continue in one di- 

 rection for making a shoemaker's stitch. The needle 

 was passed through the leather by means of pincers, 

 the thread being drawn out by weights. In actual 

 practice this machine did not work well, but was note- 

 worthy because some of the principles involved were 

 utilized later in the practical sewing-machines. 



But no machine sewing with a chain-stitch, like that 

 of Thimonnier, could be entirely satisfactory. One 

 great step, that of placing the eye of the needle at the 

 point, had been taken, but another was necessary, 

 and this first one was not fully appreciated until the 

 invention of the lock-stitch the stitch made by pass- 

 ing another thread through the loop formed by an eye- 

 pointed needle, the second thread interlocking with 

 the first in the fabric. 



This idea seems to have been first conceived by 

 Walter Hunt of New York, in 1834, who constructed 

 a machine using a curved needle having an eye near 

 the point, driven by a vibrating arm. This needle 

 formed a loop of thread under the cloth, through which 

 a thread was carried by an oscillating shuttle. In 

 this way a lock-stitch was made in very much the same 

 manner as in the modern sewing-machine. This 

 machine, although it was really a forerunner of all 

 practical sewing-machines, was thought so little of, 



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