HAPPY NATIONAL SEWING MACHINE DAY!!

This important holiday is celebrated on two days...June 13th and Sept. 10th. It is that important. Here are some facts about the sewing machine:

 This day honors the invention of the sewing machine.  It is hard to imagine having to sew things together by hand….. stitch by stitch.
Skilled cabinet-maker and English inventor, Thomas Saint, received the first patent for a design of a sewing machine in 1790.  It was meant for leather and canvas, was never advertised and no evidence of it, other than his drawings, could be found.   In 1874, William Newton Wilson found Saint’s drawings in the London Patent Office, made adjustments and built a working model.  This model is currently owned by the London Science Museum.

• Walter Hunt invented the first American lockstitch sewing machine in 1832.
• John Greenough patented the first sewing machine in the United States in 1842.
• Industrial use of the sewing machine reduced the burden that was placed upon housewives, moving clothing production from them and seamstresses to large-scale factories. 
•  This also resulted in a decrease in production time which caused the price of clothing to drop considerably.Today, many people are again becoming interested in the art of sewing and making their own clothing.  Crafts fairs and flea markets are filled with booths full of beautiful sewing machine-made clothes along with  numerous other sewing machine-made items.

Quilters across America are known as sewing machine experts!

This would be a good day to clean and oil that trusty sewing machine of yours. A good way to show it a little appreciation.