Listen to the episode
History of the Sewing Machine – The Asian Sewist Collective Podcast
Links Mentioned
Resources
Sept. 10, 1846: Sewing Machine Starts New Thread | WIRED
Sewing Machine Drama in the Old Days! Singer vs Howe!
The History of the Sewing Machine – Elias Howe and Isaac Singer
Contrado – Sewing Machine Manufacturers – A Brief History of the Big Guns
Juki Sewing Machines- How Japanese Precision Went Global
Janome (Australia) About us – Janome
Victorian Sweatshop – Morse Machine (thread)
BERNINA Factories – Manufacturing
75 Years of TOYOTA | Textiles-related business
Photos of a Vintage Toyota Embroidery Machine (Photo credit: Ada)
Sewing Friends Mentioned:
@marikoabecreative
@leila_sews
Links to Previous Episodes
Episode 31. Vintage Sewing Machines Part 1
Episode 32. Vintage Sewing Machines Part 2
Transcript
Nicole
Can I say something before you start over?
Ada
Yeah.
Nicole
Montgomery Wards, huh? What a throwback. I didn’t know Montgomery Wards did sewing machines.
Ada
Yeah, there are a lot of them. If you ever look for like the all-metal vintage ones, they’re out there.
Nicole
Oh, that’s fun.
Ada
Welcome to the Asian Sewist Collective Podcast. The Asian Sewist Collective is a group of Asian people from around the world brought together by our shared appreciation for fiber and textile arts and our desire to see more Asian representation in the sewing community.
Nicole
In this podcast we explore the intersection of identities and our shared sewing practice as we create a space for Asian Sewists and our allies.
Ada
I’m your co-host, Ada Chen, and I’m recording from Denver, Colorado. Denver is the traditional territory of the Ute, Cheyenne, and Arapaho peoples. I’m a Taiwanese American marketer, turned entrepreneur, and these days you’ll find me running my natural skincare brand, Erleia. That’s E-R-L-E-I-A. Find us on social media at Erleia Skin. Most importantly for this podcast you can find my sewing at i.hope.sew on Instagram.
Nicole
And I’m your co-host, Nicole. I’m recording outside of Chicago, Illinois, the original homelands of the Council of the Three Fires, the Ojibwe, the Potawatomi, and the Odawa people. I’m a Philippine American lawyer who loves to sew and you can find me on Instagram at Nicoleangelinesews.
Nicole
All right, welcome back listeners. So we came up with, mostly Ada came up with, the idea to talk about sewing machines. And surprisingly, 60 plus episodes into this, we haven’t really done a big deep dive into the history of sewing machines. And Ada, why don’t you tell our friends, you know, like, what inspired this episode? I believe it has to do with something new in your life.
Ada
Yes, if you are a follower on my Instagram stories, on my personal account, I bought a new sewing machine recently, about three weeks ago, two weeks ago. I got a Bernina B480. This is the same machine, I believe, that Mariko has. And this came about because I took my daily driver machine or previous daily driver machine, Nina, to get serviced. She is a Bernina 801 vintage machine, about like 40 plus years old. And I dropped her off basically right before I went on vacation. And I also brought in the Record 730, also a Bernina, that I had thrifted probably almost a year ago to see if they could tackle it.
Because from the time I brought it home to then, I like really hadn’t had time to work on it. And I couldn’t figure it out. I was like, I’ve looked at the inside. I’ve looked at the guts. I do not know why the hand wheel is not working. So I brought them both in to get service. Turns out that the Record 730 that I thrifted needed a pretty pricey replacement, not in terms of the part itself.
The part itself is probably like $30 to $50, but in terms of the labor required, obviously, to do it, which like that makes sense, right? It is skilled labor. And it wasn’t going to be guaranteed to be like a permanent forever fix. And so I was like, it’s not like 100%. And the total cost came out to like about $750 on the estimate.
Nicole
Oh.
Ada
Yeah, which is like a new machine for some brands, like a portion of a better, higher upgraded machine, all the things. I was like, I could do a lot of money things with $750 that are not fixing yet another machine that’s actually functionally very similar to what I already have.
Nicole
Yeah.
Ada
And so instead of dropping the money on that, I paid for the like inspection fee basically for them to get eyes on it. And I decided to finally look at upgrading or getting a computerized machine so I could have a more, let’s call it, comfortable sewing experience. Cause when you sew on a vintage machine that has seven stitches, like there’s things that you can do and things that you can’t do and you just kind of get on with it. And this was all happening while two other things were happening. One current event tariffs. And two, I was going, I knew I had my ACL reconstruction surgery scheduled.
Nicole
Mm-hmm.
Ada
So I knew that I was going to be out of commission from at least being in my current sewing space and setup for a while. Because on a vintage machine, you only control it with either the knee lift with your foot going up, presser foot going up and down, or the foot pedal. Computerized machines, you can have a start-stop button, which is amazing.
Nicole
Yeah. Yeah.
Ada
You can also sew, I have been sewing, I will admit, not with the start-stop button, but with the pedal with one hand and guiding with another. I know. The look on your face says that’s dangerous. And I admit, as someone who instructs beginners, very dangerous would not recommend.
Nicole
I just don’t know how I could do the hand-eye, hand coordination situation.
Ada
It’s not as bad as I think you think it would be, especially if you’re already very familiar with when your foot would be stopping.
Nicole
Yeah.
Ada
It’s not the best. But anyways, I digress. As my friend Megan, who also teaches sewing with me now, likes to say, we don’t make anything here anymore. So I was like, none of these sewing machines that I’m looking at are made here and therefore there will be a tariff on them.
Nicole
Yeah.
Ada
And that means the price is going to go up. And so I better get on it if I have all these things coming up. So that basically kicked me into gear. I picked up my machines, got a brief overview of what they had. I kind of already knew I wanted to lean into staying into the Bernina cult as some, I believe Leila has referred to it as a cult, has referred to it just because like I, my machine doesn’t use the same presser feet as the newer Berninas. It was made before that kind of cutoff date. But there are certain features that work the same. And I was like, I don’t want to have to think about this. I also only want to have to go to one shop to get everything serviced.
Nicole
Aww.
Ada
And there were a lot of things that just kind of kept me in that ecosystem. But I did consider some Jukis, some Brothers, and even a Baby Lock that Leila shared with me. So thank you, everyone who weighed in on Instagram. And then about a week later, I went back to test drive the machines and I came out with a machine. So here we are with the new B480 and ah her name is Ernie.
Nicole
Awww.
Ada
She’s been on my coffee table. We’ve been sewing up a storm since I got out of surgery. And yeah I realized that my machine was made in Thailand. So there is a connection here, I promise. It does come back to why we’re talking about sewing machines nd the history of them on this podcast. But we’re going to talk about all of that, I guess.
Nicole
Yeah, so… It sounds like you did a lot of research both on the machine features itself, but then it led you to just looking at what this is all about, where it came from. And what we’re going to be covering today is just a brief history of the sewing machine, how it came to be and how machine design and manufacturing spread through different parts of Asia. And so you’ll be hearing a lot of familiar names that will give you some background and context on them.
Ada
And there will be some crossover with our Vintage Sewing Machines episodes, which is from season three, episodes 31 and 32. So if you haven’t listened to those, definitely go back and listen. But I will say in doing some of the research for this episode, there’s some new stuff in here that we talked about.
Nicole
Nice. Yeah, it was more expansive than the vintage sewing machine, but we’ll be touching certainly on, I guess at this point, antique things and then, you know, into vintage and modern day. But Aa you gave a little bit of background on some of your machines. So I figured, let’s just, instead of the sew-n-chat, let’s do the machine-n-chat. Let’s talk about our machine.
Ada
Yeah, what machines do you have? What have you owned? What’s been in your collection?
Nicole
I have owned five machines in the last five years when I started sewing. So it’s been a little over five. Wow. It’s been five years since I started learning how to sew. 2020 was like yesterday, right?
Ada
Yeah.
Nicole
Whoa. But the first machine I bought, and you may have heard me talk about this on the podcast before, was a Singer Start 1304, which I think is discontinued and is now a Singer M1500 and which is similar, very much the same thing. Fully mechanical, lightweight. There were like seven stitches on it with the dial. It was all I needed, and it really was everything that I needed. And I remember going to Joann to pick one up, and I saw online that Walmart had the same one for like 80 bucks, $85. And I read the Singer M1500 retails for like $130 now for a starter machine, which is still really good.
I just remember picking it up and being like, y’all price match, right? And like showing them the Walmart ad. They were like, we don’t price match to Walmart. I’m like, who says? And the supervisor had to come over and price match. So like, I mean, it was a steal for me to get it. But I ended up selling it a couple months later only because I wanted to upgrade to just a heavier machine. I mean quite literally heavier because it would bounce. Like if I was going fast, you could feel it on the table, like kind of, you know, and I had just started getting into, of course, mask making, but then doing longer, like more curvier stitches and I just wanted to go fast. So I ended up buying my second machine, the one that I use the most is a Brother two in one sewing and embroidery computerized machine.
Nicole
And I was like, yeah, I’m gonna embroider stuff. It’s great. I have not done a ton of embroidery. I mean, I have the thread, everything, but um I think I just had a bad first experience and I was like, well, this is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. I got it in May, 2020. And at the time machines were widely sold out. Like online, there weren’t stores to go to, to pick them up. And the one that I ended up getting was a brother, the two in one, but the model was the LB 5000, which is a Star Wars edition. It was the only one available.
Ada
Sure, but also…
Nicole
Lucky enough that it was Star Wars. And what made it Star Wars edition is that there’s just like face plates that you can put on it. And then it also came preloaded with a few Star Wars embroidery designs and stuff. It was 500 bucks. It seemed like a lot at the time. And I mean, yes, $500 is a significant amount compared to my $80 Singer Start, which I think I sold, resold on for like 90 because people were really like, they really wanted to sew.
Ada
Wow.
Nicole
Yeah. And I was like, okay, here you go. So that’s the one I use. It’s a lot of no bouncing, nice and heavy duty. And I got a Brother 1034DX serger probably about a year later and just was really scared. I think maybe the podcast had started when I just got it or like got it during the podcast. I still don’t use it as much as I should, but it’s pretty, it’s basic. I think it’s their lowest end serger. I went with Brother because I was like, I can’t, I don’t feel like doing the research. Like, ah I know people like it, like it’s fine. And it was, it was about 200 bucks, I think at the time. so it was again, like, sale, whatever works fine. My sister got one too, because she was super excited about it. So that’s wait, one, two, three. And then I bought a second Brother computerized quilting machine. And i just wanted the table.
Nicole
You know what I’m saying? Like the attachable table.
Ada
Yep.
Nicole
And because what I would do larger projects, I would hate the dragging, you know, when you’re working on, I mean, pretty much anything, but let’s say a long pair of pants or like a maxi dress. I didn’t like how things would drape front and back. Like I wanted a larger surface. So I actually looked into custom tables that I could use on my current machine. People like 3D print them and fit them. And they run between like 100 and 150, $170.
Nicole
But I was really nervous about not fitting because mine was a Star Wars machine. So I would be ordering the equivalent and I was like, they’re going to custom make it. It’s going to go wrong. And I found this machine for like 200 bucks. And I was like, all right, you know what? I’ll just get it. And at the time in my workplace, there was a craft club. So it actually lived at my office and for craft club. And I would do sewing. People would do, you know, like whatever they were doing. And um so I have that. That has been my main machine recently, just because I started I did start doing more embroidery. And rather than like switching the functions, have it set up as the embroidery machine.
Ada
Yeah
Nicole
And my last one ah is my vintage Bernette, which I’ve talked about on the podcast. It was gifted to me by a friend who is an avid quilter and is learning how to sew garments. I helped her cut out her first Vogue pattern. We’re we’re starting with the easy stuff, right?
Ada
Bold.
Nicole
Vogue. Yeah.
Ada
Go for it.
Nicole
But it’s my heavy duty machine. Like it’s the one that really is hefty. You know, it has the same feel as your Singers that you use for your classes. It’s heavy. It’s like a lot of it is metal. Not all of it, but because I think it was from like 89 or 90. But that’s what I use when I’m needing to go through thick fabric, like leather, faux leather, that type of thing, a canvas and all that. So fantastic. Five machines in my lifetime, four still in my possession. And I had an antique singer that didn’t work. One from like, think it was manufactured in 1909. I gave it to my friend who gave me the vintage Bernette because she’s going to restore it at least for as a decoration piece. But yeah. How about you? We’ve talked about your new model. How many have you gone through in your life?
Ada
I did not count them. So you can count. We can count maybe. I started with a Janome Mod 17. So it did 17 stitches. I think it was about $150. Great beginner machine. I ended up selling it when I got my Bernina 801, the vintage machine, my daily driver up until now. So that one I bought for about $200 in great condition um at my local Creative Reuse store. And in that time, secondary, I guess, to that, I’ve also had, similar to you, about a 100-year-old singer. I think from the date codes, it’s a 1921.
Now, I did restore it, and I put a new motor on it, but then I realized that the motor that they put on these is pretty slow. I might have… messed up on that one should have gone with a hand crank anyways it’s now just on display very cute i at some point had a 60 year old pink singer that i thrifted but I ended up reselling it because it was just collecting dust and it did straight and zigzag so it was kind of on the cusp of what we’re going to talk about in terms of functionality.
I also for a while my first serger was a vintage Bernette serger from the 80s.
Nicole
Yeah.
Ada
I could not keep that thing threaded for my life. So even though I picked it up for $80, I think I sold it for like the same. And I was like, you know what? We’re just going to wait until we can commit to one that we like. There’s also the Bernina Record 730, which is still in my collection. I will get around to, I think, eventually restoring her at some point completely. But for now, I think I’m going to use her as my display. How do things work? Like take it apart for classes.
Nicole
Hmm.
Ada
Because as you mentioned, I do teach on Singer heavy duties. The ones we have at the workshop are 4411s, which I think might be like a generation or two or a cycle or two out now because I don’t really see new ones very often anymore. There’s like updated ones, but they’re the gray one. You see them on YouTube a lot. You see them on social media. They are quite heavy and heavy duty. I will say that doesn’t mean you can floor it immediately. Because I’ve had a lot of students do that. And even though I’ve newly redone, cleaned, oiled everything in the machine, they managed to jam it by doing that. So we have more rules now. But um yes, they all have names. It’s very cute. And I have, luckily, after that serger fiasco, let’s say, I have Juki MO654DE, which is a serger, and the Juki MCS1500 cover stitch.
Nicole
Aw.
Ada
They basically look identical, except for the functions are slightly different. Affectionately called Juju and Kiki. They live next to each other on my table.
And I actually got those secondhand from another sewist who was leaving Denver to move back to California. And this was not something that she could take with her. She actually was using them to sew samples for her own clothing line, which recently shut down. So RIP, but she did want them to go to a good home. And I was like, I really only need a serger. She’s like, I will throw in the cover stitch for free. Just take them.
Nicole
Ooh.
Ada
So yeah, I’ve recently ran out of thread finally on one of them. So there’s some threading to come in my future, but yeah, current the current rotation is the modern Bernina, the vintage, I’m going to keep for like top stitching and special applications kind of the same as yours. They can both do pretty heavy duty and they both have a table and then the serger and the cover stitch. So that’s my like daily setup, I guess.
Nicole
I’ve never used a cover stitch before.
Ada
It’s so fun. When I tell you that I thought about double fold hemming the other day or just whacking it through the cover stitch because, you know, circle on the bottom of a dress. It’s just going to go through. I was like. We’re just going to cover stitch it.
Nicole
I gotta try it next time I’m visiting you.
Ada
Yeah.
Nicole
As if I need it.
Ada
It’s especially fun. I will say on knits. like It does give you. I think just like a slightly nicer finish. Not nicer. like A slightly more store bought feeling. When you do finish it.
Nicole
Yeah.
Ada
Because I used it on my matching top and bottom travel set. in A few months ago. Before I went on my trip.
Nicole
Yeah. Oh, I should try it. I should go to the Fashion Lab and see if they have a cover stitch I can try. I should also name my machines. I don’t know.
Ada
Naming your machines is the best. My friend named one of her machines POS piece of because she had feelings about it.
Nicole
Yes. Sunshine.
Ada
Yeah, Sunshine. And I had my last, we didn’t actually have names on the machines at the workshop where I teach until my last batch of intro students. And we were having a lot of trouble with some of the machines. And so I had like deconstruct them. Which on some of the, I will say like on some of the modern machines that are mostly plastic, they replaced a lot of what used to be hinges with screws because screws are cheaper, but that means you can’t easily access the inside of the machine. And so to do that, I have to like take them home and spend a day doing it. And I had just serviced like all of them and stuff was still going wrong. So we decided to name them to like track which one was having issues. And that one’s name is Horcrux.
Nicole
Appropriate appropriate. I’ll just start thinking thinking about names for my machines listeners if you have any suggestions based on the descriptions i kind of feel like i want to call the Star Wars one Anakin.
Ada
Ooh, yeah.
Nicole
Yeah I was thinking Darth Vader. I’m like two words is too much. Anakin, Annie for short.
Ada
Anakin’s like, oh, I like that. I was gonna say like R2D2, no, because it’s a droid.
Nicole
Yeah. Or I could call him little Arthur. Have you heard, do you know about little Arthur?
Ada
No, but I did watch Arthur on PBS growing up.
Nicole
So I’m, yeah, no, there it’s, his is a story that I saw on like a late night television show and the actor Diego Luna, who plays Andor and lots of other things, but listeners more broadly might know him from, from the Star Wars TV show Andor. And he says that in Mexico, R2-D2 is known as Little Arthur sometimes to some people because to him, he thought the droid’s name was Little Arthur because it was like Arturito. We may have to cut this for length but or put it in the post-credits.
Ada
That’s actually amazing. Yeah.
Nicole
But like yeah, it’s really sweet. Maybe I’ll call the Star Wars one, Little Arthur. I’ll let listeners know what I decide. Anyway, I digress per usual. But we let’s jump into our main topic for the day, which is sewing machines. And we’re going to start with the early origins of mechanized sewing machines in France and then the US. And then we’ll take a look at the origins of the big Japanese founded sewing machine brands and then talk about manufacturing.
Ada
So sewing machines are not that old. The first known sewing machine design was actually patented by an English inventor named Thomas Saint in 1790, but he never built it. We had to wait 40 to 50 years, 60 years after that, and then several inventors kind of refined on the sewing machine ideas. So two important names that I’m going to share.
Barthelemy Thimonnier from France, who was a French tailor who developed the first functional sewing machine using a hooked needle to create a chain stitch. So this is not the same way that our current sewing machines work right now. If you’re interested, there are YouTube videos that kind of show how, um, Thimonnier’s designs worked or were supposed to work. He actually did establish a factory to use these machines to produce uniforms for the French army. But unfortunately, in 1831, his factory was destroyed by tailors who were a little fearful that they were going to be replaced due to mechanizations.
Then we have Walter Hunt, who was in the US, who created an early lockstitch backstitch machine in 1834. He basically created a machine that would produce a lockstitch using two threads. So again, not the same as what we are using right now. And he was concerned that his invention would similarly lead to job loss for seamstresses. So he decided not to patent it, but he did invent and patent the safety pin in 1849. So we have him to thank for safety pins.
Nicole
Thank you, Walter Hunt. Another American, Elias Howe, went on to patent the lockstitch machine in 1846. At a demonstration, I think it was a World’s Fair in 1845, the machine was able to out-sew five humans at a rate of 250 stitches per minute. And for context, current modern home beginner level models at top speed, will produce 700 to 900 stitches per minute. So that machine was 250 stitches per minute from 1846. And basic machines will hit usually at least 700 stitches per minute. And of course, the more advanced machines can do over a thousand.
Ada
You know what’s really funny? My vintage Nina, so it’s 1100 stitches per minute according to her manual, but my new one that I upgraded to is says 900 stitches per minute.
Nicole
They don’t make them like they used to.
Ada
They don’t, they really don’t.
Nicole
Wow, 1100. That sounds really fast.
Ada
I’m going to do a time test at some point, listeners. We will put that on as a Reel.
Nicole
Oh, I can’t wait.
Ada
I’ve got to figure out how you do that though.
Nicole
Oh time the stitches per minute.
Ada
Yeah.
Nicole
We’ll figure it out.
Ada
I think I’m going to need help to like start the time.
Nicole
It can be an on-air activity. We will figure this out.
Ada
Fair enough.
Nicole
That’s exciting. Well, listeners, you all have probably heard also of Isaac Singer, who is an American, who improved the design and mass produced machines in the 1850sforming, yes, the Singer Sewing Machine Company.
Ada
So from the mid to late 1800s, the US basically dominated sewing machine innovation and manufacturing. Singer, but a brand that we all know and is still around today, was one of the major players. White was another major player and so was Wheeler and Wilson. But Singer actually became one of the largest manufacturers with factories both in the US and abroad. I believe up until some of the times that we’re going to talk about soon, um they had factories in Europe um And then later in Asia.
But in the early 20th century, so the 1900s, production boomed with machines being used both domestically and in garment factories. Post-World War II, though, American sewing machine dominance kind of began to wane and decline a little bit due to two big things. Number one, rising labor costs here. And number two, increased competition from Japan.
Nicole
And that brings us to the Asian part of this podcast and something that, you know, I didn’t really know a ton about. So Ada talked about the decline in American manufacturing, sewing machine manufacturing post-World War II. And this is where it really took off in Japan. Japanese companies became the global leaders in sewing machine manufacturing with companies that you, I’m sure, have heard of, Janome, Brother, Juki, and Baby Lock. So even though manufacturing was leaving the United States, the increase in manufacturing and design out of Japan coincided with a boom in home sewing in the U.S.
Fabric, patterns, they became popular to purchase again, and post-war economy resources that were available made these things easier to purchase. And right around that time, Auntie Jo’s was founded. So Joann Fabrics started in 1943 as the Cleveland Fabric Shop, and Hancock Fabric started in 1957. Department stores also had fabric sections, so home sewing became really prominent in the United States.
And this was during a time when, before there were a lot of ready to wear garments that were affordable. And by the time the 70s and 80s rolled around, ready to wear garments became cheaper and more accessible and led to the decline in home sewing.
So turning back to the Japanese companies that you may have heard of, the Janome company was founded back in 1921 by Yosaku Osei. And Janome introduced innovations into the sewing machine, like the first programmable computerized sewing machine later in 1979.
Brother was established as the Yasui Sewing Machine Company in 1908. And Brother began mass producing home sewing machines in 1932.
And then we also have Juki, which was founded in 1938 Tokyo Juki Manufacturers Association. They started manufacturing sewing machines in 1945 and released the first industrial sewing machine in 1953.
Now, another thing I did not know was that Baby Lock, actually evolved from Juki. And in 1964, engineers at Juki developed the first serger or overlock, depending on you know the terminology where you’re from. Juki developed the first serger machine for individual use, leading to the creation of the company Baby Lock. So that’s pretty cool.
Ada
That is pretty cool. Another company that you might not associate with sewing machines, but did make them at some point is Toyota, which as a family with household with three Toyotas of varying brands, levels, and functions, made my partner very excited to hear.
Ada
He even said I should get one And then I had to tell him some bad news. But anyways, after World War II, Toyota actually had a spinning plan. So they were spinning and weaving and making textiles in 1945. And they actually like spun out that company, pun intended. And in the textiles-related business, basically when they moved to like being a peacetime company post-war, um the president of the company, Kiichiro Toyoda, directed that they should basically develop sewing machines because they are a peacetime industry and the change will be very good because people will always need clothes. Not incorrect.
These sewing machines were actually sold as Toyota sewing machines and then together with the manufacturing of auto parts, which is what we know them for now, cars, that became a central part of their business. And they actually did make embroidery machines up until the mid 2000s. I believe 2005 to 2008 is when they stopped manufacturing these. But a lot of the sewing machines or embroidery machines that they made, they weren’t your average, like Nicole, what you have right at home.
Nicole
Yeah.
Ada
They weren’t meant to sit on the top of your table. They were like probably the size of a table is probably my best summary.
Nicole
Whoa.
Ada
We’ll try to include some pictures in the show notes, but I did see one in real life last year, which is why I can tell you they are large and they were meant for either your home-based embroidery business or small embroidery shops. So thank the people who do your like letters for sororities and fraternities, like when you get those embroidered onto your sweatshirts or when you’re making like patches, stuff like that.
Ada
Those are the kinds of machines that they had in the mid-2000s. You can find them used now a lot of the times secondhand. They do kind of still manage to be in circulation. They are no longer serviced. You cannot bring one to a Toyota car dealership. They will not know what to do with it. suffice to say, I was very excited when my partner said, you should totally get one. Yeah.
Nicole
I want one now. But then you said one was table-sized. I was fully expecting to be like, cool, I’ll get one. It’ll sit next to my little Brother four by four frame thing. Nope.
Ada
Nope. It warrants either its own table or its own whole – it would be like the entirety of your trunk if you were to bring it. When I saw it last year consider getting it. I was like, where am I going to put this? How would I even get it into my house? Why am I considering this? I will also say that I also do use a lot of car analogies to A, teach sewing with the pedals B, when I was going to go buy my new sewing machine.
I think we all know that Berninas are like very expensive machines and I’m not saying this is like, it’s just a fact. They’re very expensive, right? And i was trying to further the car analogy to my car loving partner. And so I was like, I am about to make a large, you know, we see each other’s finances. I was like, I’m about to make a large purchase. It is a sewing machine. And if I were to make an analogy about cars, this is not a Toyota. If my current car is the vintage Porsche that we see our neighbor driving sometime, I’m about to get a new one, not the base one and not the very expensive one or the very big one, something in the middle.
Nicole
And he got it.
Ada
And you got it. And a friend was like, that’s the true meaning of marriage. You can explain things to each other in totally different ways.
Nicole
It’s his language.
Ada
Yes, it’s his language, truly. Between the Toyota sewing machine’s fact that I gave him and this analogy, like he is very much, okay, cool, keep doing what you’re doing. Yeah.
Nicole
Michael wouldn’t know what to do if I started talking about. Not a car guy, not a car guy, but would probably support it if i wanted to get one.
Ada
I mean, I sometimes use the more generic. There was a few students and a few of my batches of intro students who were like, okay, so it was like a Singer, like a Ford. And I was like, yeah, it’s kind of like a Ford.
Ada
And then they were trying to like do the analogies because someone had brought their Brother. and I was like, that’s like a Honda. And then we were trying to say like, yeah. And like, you know, the pedal with acceleration. And so now sometimes when we’re talking about speed, I say like, if you’re flooring it, you’re going on the highway, like, I don’t know, 75 miles an hour above the speed limit. Or sometimes we want to go nice and slow and steady, and but we’ve hit all the green lights. So we’re cruising at a nice 30 miles per hour. And sorry to our metric listeners. I do not know kilometers per hour, but imagine like, you know, very fast versus slow, medium, you know, city driving. The car analogies have gone far, so far in sewing for the last two few months for me. Yeah.
Nicole
It must help with pedals. Like I think that makes a lot of sense.
Ada
I think so. I hope it’s working. No one’s said anything. I do ask, like, does everyone drive before we use those analogies?
Nicole
Fair enough. I probably would not have even thought to ask that. Well, let’s look at… We talked about the Japanese companies. Let’s look at the Japanese manufacturing because it all did start in Japan.
Nicole
And… Japanese machines, sewing machines specifically, were broadly praised for their reliability, affordability, and quality. And you may all associate precision engineering with Japanese engineering as well, and it’s the same for sewing machines. T hese Japanese companies invested in this precision engineering so that they can, they led to advanced models for home and industrial use. Something interesting that came up in our research was the advent of Singer clones. So you may have heard of the Singer 15 clone.
Well many early Japanese machines were heavily inspired by Singer designs. So there is a legend, something you know meaning that we can’t find a primary source for this particular claim, but multiple people in the sewing community, multiple people that are experts in various ways have said that, they claim that the US government facilitated intellectual property transfer from the US to Japan post-World War II. And this included expired Singer patents. So they sent the expired Singer patents to Japanese manufacturers post-World War II to help stimulate their manufacturing economy as part of the post-war reconstruction.
What is well documented is the “Japanese economic miracle” post-World War II. And this means that the 1960s, the Japanese government picked certain, “Sunrise Industries” thought to be potential winners in the global economic race and helped them help these particular industries through providing low interest loans and allocation of scarce foreign exchange so that they could import what they needed to boost these manufacturing industries. And pushing exports lay at the heart of this so-called industrial policy to promote economic development. And it’s likely that sewing machine manufacturing was a part of this post-World War two economic effort/boom in Japan.
Ada
Right. So these Japanese-made machines did not stay in Japan. And a lot of them, many of them, maybe even the majority of them, made their way over to the U.S. and elsewhere under different brand names. So just like how companies today will work with manufacturers abroad to create their products and brand them, and import them. If anybody has been reading the news about tariffs, that will be my two cents here.
Not much has changed in the world and how our economies work. So the way that it would work was that companies like Morse, which is a name that might come up if you’re familiar with vintage sewing machines, would contract with Japanese manufacturers, including Toyota, to make sewing machines for the US market. Really at this point, I think Toyota should sponsor us. Give me a car.
Nicole
Yeah!
Ada
Anyways, back to the point. Companies like Morse began importing machines in the late 40s. So Morse specifically started importing machines in 1948 and 49. And they started copywriting their like branding labels and logos in the early 50s, which made them more of their own kind of sewing brand. Kind of like how we think of like Singer, Brother, Janome, Juki, Bernina, Husqvarna, Viking, Pfaff, all of them now today. Morse also would source machines for department stores and retailers like Sears and Roebuck, Montgomery Wards. So if you’ve been in the vintage machine world, again, you’ve probably seen those machines come up quite frequently as well.
Sears was not out here making their own sewing machines. They were contracting them out and then branding them as Sears branded. Kenmore, I believe, is also kind of in that world of brands. So any of those machines, they weren’t being made usually by the brand that they have kind of on them.
Morse continued to import machines well through the 50s, 60s, and there’s even some machines and documentation that date to the 70s. And over time, these machines evolved as sewing machines, you know, their designs and their forms, the styles that you see, even the colors that you see of the machines, those kept changing with the times and they changed amongst manufacturers. So you’ll see that there are actually quite a few models that were manufactured in Japan at this time for specifically the US market.
And some of these machines might have a JA or JC number stamped or cast into the metal. If you have one of these machines, you might have seen it on the bottom or on the side or the back of the main body of the machine, which I know this number can be like a source of debate amongst collectors. So if you’re interested in learning more or contributing your own knowledge about machines to specifically like the Japanese vintage machine community, there is a forum called victoriansweatshop.com. Less than ideal URL choice, we know, that you can learn more at. They the folks on this forum are also looking for folks to help find firsthand sources on some of these machines. So I want to thank listener Jim for writing in and listening to our past episodes and sharing this resource with us. um He is a source for most of our knowledge about Morse machines today.
Nicole
Very cool. And like everything else, manufacturing, the cost of manufacturing evolved and, of course, increased. So in the 1980s and 1990s, Japan’s manufacturing costs rose and companies began offshoring production to Southeast Asia to reduce expenses.
So Juki opened its first overseas factory in 1990 in Shanghai, China. Common destinations where sewing machine manufacturing moved to were Taiwan, one of the first moves, one of the first places that Japanese manufacturing went to. China, there was a large scale shift in the late 1990s and early 2000s to Chinese manufacturing. And also Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia. And Ada, you mentioned that your machine was manufactured in Thailand, right?
Ada
Yes, I believe Bernina has a page on their website that we will link to in the show notes. They opened at their Thailand facility in 1990. And I believe all of the machines that I teach with, so the Singer Heavy Duties, all came from Vietnam.
Nicole
Yeah, I mean, American brands like Singer moved to production overseas and Singer began outsourcing in the 70s and 80s. And it was eventually, Singer was eventually sold to overseas companies. And it is now part of the SVP Worldwide Conglomerate, which also owns, oh gosh, I can’t pronounce this. I’ve never thought about pronouncing this.
Ada
Husqvarna!
Nicole
Also owns Husqvarna, Viking and Pfaff.
Ada
I’ve seen Husqvarna mangled so many times because they are also a brand that does like power washing and other like tools and machinery.
Nicole
Oh.
Ada
You’ll see them at like Lowe’s or a Costco. And I’m like, hey, that’s the sewing machine brand. Yeah.
Nicole
I have never thought that I would say those words out loud. So here we are. Husqvarna. Thank you for that.
Ada
So there you have it. It’s a brief history of the sewing machine and its ties to design and manufacturing and how we ended up with all of our sewing machines mostly being made in Asia today. Even, you know, some of our vintage ones as well. Most of our vintage ones, I would guess. We hope you enjoyed learning a little bit more about the machines that we all use pretty regularly. And definitely check out our show notes for links to the sources we used for this episode, pictures, Instagrams, places to follow and dig in if you are a little bit more intrigued by sewing machines. And of course, a link to our previous episodes on vintage sewing machines.
Nicole
Very carefully flip over your machine and tell us where yours was manufactured.
Ada
I would really love to find a made in Taiwan machine. Like no joke.
Nicole
I’m going to go check mine now. I don’t know why I didn’t do it before we recorded, but I will. Listeners, let us know, where were your machines made, especially the vintage ones? I’m curious to see if they were made in the 60s or 70s or 80s during that time when manufacturing was shifting and changing. Maybe where did you think it was made and where was it ultimately made? I’m curious. So I’ll check my machines after this, but be careful. No actually flipping the machines aggressively. Just look for it. Don’t hurt yourself. But we’d love to hear about it.
Ada
Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of the Asian Sewist Collective podcast If you like our show, please consider supporting us on coffee by becoming a one-time or monthly supporter or by buying our sewing labels. Your financial support helps us with our overhead expenses. The link to our coffee page is KO-FI .com Asian Sewist Collective and you can find the link in our show notes on our website and on our Instagram account. Check us out on Instagram @asiansewistcollective. That’s one word Asian Sewist Collective. You can also help us out by spreading the word and telling your friends We would also appreciate it if you could rate review and subscribe to this podcast on Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast
Nicole
All of the links and resources mentioned in today’s episode will be in the show notes on our website That’s AsianSewistCollective.com and we’d love to hear from you. Email us with your questions comments or even voice messages if you want to be featured on future episodes at AsianSewistCollective@gmail.com. Thank you so much to the other members of our collective who made this episode a reality. This is the Asian Sewist Collective podcast and we’ll see you next time.