Sewing machine

Sewing machine, machine for sewing cloth, leather, or books. There are two main types: chainstitch machines, using a needle and only one thread, with a hook that pulls each looped stitch through the next, and lockstitch machines, using two threads, one through the needle eye and the other interlocking with the first in the material, from a bobbin/shuttle system. Chain-stitch machines—the first to be invented, by Barthélemy Thimmonier (1793–1859)—are now used chiefly to make sacks or bags. The lockstitch machines now in general use are based on the one invented by Elias Howe (1846). Isaac M. Singer invented the foot treadle and the presser foot (1850), which holds the fabric down. Zigzag machines differ from ordinary straight-stitch machines in having variously shaped cams that move the needle from side to side. Almost all U.S. machines are electrically powered, but foot-treadle machines are common elsewhere.