Sewing machineIn 1854, Charles Miller of St. Louis, Mo., patented the first U.S. sewing machine to stitch buttonholes (No. 10,609). His machine was adapted to sew the button-hole stitch, the whip-stitch, and the herring-bone stitch, by giving the cloth to be sewed "a movement laterally to the direction of the seam and in opposite directions, alternately, between every two stitches, in addition to the movement commonly given in the direction of the seam." For the button-hole stitch the movement in the direction of the seam is the distance of one thickness of thread, whereas that movement is greater for a whip-stitch. The herring bone stitch is made by taking all the stitches through. The first U.S. patent for any type of sewing machine dated back to 1842. |
