AS many of our readers are anxious to know just what the new sewing-machine introduced by Mme. Demorest, and alluded to in our November number, is, we will tell them what we think of its uses and advantages.

WHAT IT IS.

IN the first place it will attract attention from its diminutive, (airy-like size, and the ease with which it can be carried, an important matter to a seamstress or dressmaker employed from house to house. It is contained in an ordinary paper-box, much the size of an ordinary square photographic album, and may be carried about with the same ease. When in use it is attached to an ordinary table, after the fashion of a sewing-bird. There is no machinery below, the whole motive-power being a small crank, which is turned with ease.

HOW IT WORKS.

Its operation is wonderfully simple. An ordinary sewing needle is threaded, the eye placed in a socket, which may be seen in the cut; the point must rest opposite the centre of the cog wheel, and for this reason the socket may be adjusted by a simple screw, pushed backwards or forwards as the needle is longer or shorter. This is the chief judgment required. The commencement of the seam is held to the point of the needle, which takes it up until the needle is full, when a reverse movement of the crank is made, the work drawn off, and it begins afresh.

WHAT IT DOES.

What no other sewing-machine attempts to do, it runs, and does not stitch, it sews the more delicate materials, which an ordinary sewing-machine cuts or draws. The cambrics for infants' clothing, the Swiss muslin for Swiss waists, skirts of soft fabric, Nansook, muslin, and mousseline de laine (all wool), can be traced beautifully by it.
Breadths of fine flannels, mousselines, summer poplins, and all thin fabrics, can be run up with it. For the dressmaker, in spring and summer it is invaluable: for the household it supplies a vacant place for more delicate uses. As in sewing by hand one seamstress is required for heavy work, another only undertakes fine sewing, or certain parts of it, so with sewing-machines. Every owner of these household blessings is willing to give five dollars for a “tucker” or “hemmer,” or any improvement that facilitates work— it is just the price asked for this little gleaner in the great harvest field of industry, that modestly keeps its own place, nor seeks to usurp one already filled. It is a most useful and appropriate gift for the holidays, being packed for this purpose in a pretty case, and ornamental in itself. The price is only $5. Address Madame Demorest, 43 Broadway, New York.

References:

ITEM #5878
January, 1863
Godey's Lady's Book
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Vol LXVI Page 101

STRINGS AND PINS.

“THESE necessary toilet appendages,” says Madame de Capin, “maybe reckoned among the plagues of a woman's life;” and I am quite sure of enlisting the sympathy of my fair friends when I tell them how to dispense with those troublesome and in some cases painful appliances. Beyond pricking, scratching, slipping, and tearing the fabric, I have nothing to say against pins, especially as they have of late years been superseded by buttons and hooks and eyes; but the strings remain as they were from the beginning, and are worn at the present time with as little regard to the true end and purpose of dressing as they were a thousand years ago.

“All who are acquainted with the structure of the human body know that one absolute condition of its perfection is that all the great organs of life should have perfect freedom of action. The internal viscera are permeated by innumerable ducts and vessels, which are charged with the various fluids of the body. The whole of them are, from their very nature, soft and yielding; and the least pressure upon any of them is at once followed by painful results. Hence people who lace their boots tight are troubled with congested and painful feet in summer, and chilblains in winter. A tight, unyielding garter will spoil the most beautiful leg in the world, in the same way as a ligature, bound tightly around the finger, will cause pain and injury to that member. All pressure, therefore, upon the waist, of an unyielding kind, is attended with bad results.

“I met with a young lady, the other day, who had a large red mark all round the body caused by the petticoat strings. She wore a light and elegant corset; but the pressure of the strings caused this to yield, and hence the line of beauty, which is nowhere so well developed as in the natural female waist, was destroyed, and the healthful action of the bodily function greatly interfered with. And why was this? Why, simply because the lady imagined that a small waist was beautiful, and she had nothing but strings by which to suspend the under-clothing. I therefore set my wits to work, and have invented a petticoat suspender, which will, I trust, supersede all the old methods of fastening that indispensable article of female attire.”

We shall give, in our next number, a very plain and practical description of this admirable invention, which, in these days of crinoline and moreen, may be regarded as a public benefit, especially as the warm and languid days of the approaching season make the present weight of skirts an oppressive burden.

References:

ITEM #1069
May, 1857
Godey's Lady's Book
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Vol LIV Page 478