Slide 2: From using bone needles with eyes to stitch animal skins together almost 4000 years

ago to revolutionising the clothing industry by the patent of the first sewing machine in
1846, we have really come a long way in the evolution of sewing. Some ancient examples of
swing methods are iron needles produced in the early iron age and the use of Thimbles in
China during Han Dynasty. But the sewing machine itself is a fairly recent invention barely
200 years old. For thousands of years, people (mostly women) were forced to sew slowly
and laboriously by hand. The first attempts to make sewing machines failed largely because
almost every inventor tried to mimic the motions of the hand sewers and those motions
proved too complex for the 18th and early 19th century technology.

Slide 3: Sewing has been a necessity in cultures and societies for millions of years. It was
used to stitch together animal hides for clothing, warmth and shelter. A great example of
this is looking at Inuits, who would use sinew from caribou and those American Plains and
Canadian Prairies used sophisticated sewing methods to assemble tipi shelters. Moving
around the world, sewing was combined with the weaving of plant leaves in Africa to create
baskets; thin strips of palm leaf would be used as thread to stitch wider strips of palm leaf to
make the coil.
Moving North East from Africa, the weaving of cloth from natural fibres was originated
around 4000 BC and even earlier, during the Neolithic Age was when the sewing of cloth
accompanied this development.

Bone sewing- Then maybe around 40,000 BC, still in Central Asia, somebody had the idea to
make a hole in the end of the awl and thread the first needle.
This made sewing a lot faster and easier, and soon the new idea spread to other cold places
like northern Europe and North America.
People made these early needles out of bone and ivory, like awls. People were also starting
to use spindles and spindle whorls to make thread – these were the first wheels and axles.
Nobody knows whether they were weaving clothing yet, but they were weaving mats and
baskets.

Slide 4: Middle Ages

During this time, Europeans who could afford it, would employ seamstresses and tailors.
Sewing was mainly a woman’s occupation and all sewing before the 19th century tended to
be practical. Clothing was expensive so women had the important job of extending the
longevity of items of clothing. Sewing was used for mending, reusing (such as making quilts
etc.). Making clothes from scratch was long and tedious (weaving pattern making, cutting,
alterations..) which meant that women were able to barter their expertise in particular skill
with one another.
Decorative needlework such as embroidery was a highly valued skill at the time and from
the Middle Ages up until the 17th century, sewing tools such as needles, pins and
pincushions were included in the trousseaus of many European brides. Decirative
embroidery was valued in countries and cultures all over the world - from Ireland to China,
Morocco to Western Asia, cultures independent from each other found themselves with the
same styles of stitching - pretty awesome!

Slide 5 and 6: The Industrial Revolution saw the change of the assembling measures in
Europe and the US from around 1760 to the mid-nineteenth century. It saw the progress
from hand creation strategies to machines, synthetic assembling and iron creation
measures, and an increment in steam and water power. Machine devices were created, and
we saw the ascent of the automated manufacturing plant framework.

Materials were a prevailing industry during this time, and the material business was one of
the first to use current creation strategies. The sewing machine changed the manner in
which dress was made and the speed at which garments were produced, changing how the
entire attire industry worked.

The mechanical insurgency fundamentally altered humankind and altogether modified the
manner in which individuals work, bringing numerous advancements into individuals' lives.

The sewing machine affected the two organizations and families. Organizations could mass-
produce clothing which aided make the material business one of the significant drivers of
the Industrial Revolution, driving financial creation. In the home, the sewing machine
permitted ladies to sew garments for their families all the more rapidly and without any
problem. The large scale manufacturing of garments drove down costs, permitting families
admittance to more moderate individual pieces of clothing.

The sewing machine moved the weight of sewing from housewives and sewers to huge
scope industrial facilities, giving more prominent efficiency and lower costs. Ladies who had
been occupied at home could now discover work in these plants, expanding their family's
pay.

Slide 6: French tailor Barthelemy Thimonnier invented the first simple sewing machine with
basic chain stitch and tried to implement it in his factory which was then burned down by a
retaliating angry mob of French tailors who thought they would be left unemployed because
of his new machine. A few years later in America, Walter Hunt gave up on his own project of
making and patenting his own straight seam sewing machine because of the same fear but
instead the emergence of industrial sewing machines created multiple job opportunities
worldwide. Machines with different functions are operated to complete clothing items in a
production line. When these machines started being marketed to individuals in 1889,
women started having the means to create clothing for their family without the labour-
intensive hand stitching. Now, the domestic sewing machine is manufactured to perform
many tasks from sewing straight or zigzag stitches and the creation of buttonholes, as well
as stitching buttons on to the piece of clothing.

Slide 7: Once the sewing machine was mass-produced, it was time to improve the type of
sewing people could do. Of course, there are lots of ways to cross-stitch, hem, stitch
buttons, and sew bags with hand sewing. But, as the sewing machine helped cut down the
time it took to make clothes, it was time for outfits to get new forms of stitching. In the 20th
century, sewing machines became more affordable to the working class so the demand for
sewing patterns grew. An American tailor and manufacturer called Ebenezer Butterick
created paper patterns that could be traced and used by home sewers. These became wildly
popular and off the back of the demand, several pattern companies soon established
themselves. As some of you might remember, women’s magazines also carried sewing
patterns for much of the 20th century but declined when ready-made clothing became a
necessity when more women joined the paid workforce, leaving them with less time to sew.
Today, the low price of ready-made clothing in high street shops and online, means that
home sewing is largely confined to hobbyists in the Western world with the exception of
cottage industries in custom dressmaking and upholstery!