ric, holding the thread in place and preventing the hook from
catching. The fabric was stretched between two rollers set in an upright
frame capable of sliding vertically in a second frame arranged to have
longitudinal motion. The combination of these two motions was sufficient
to produce any required design. The principle developed by Duncan was
used on embroidery machines, in a modified form, for many years. Of
several early attempts, his was the first to realize any form of
success.

[Illustration: Figure 4.--WEISENTHAL'S two-pointed needle, 1755.]

[Illustration: Figure 5.--SAINT'S SEWING MACHINE, 1790. (Smithsonian
photo 42490-A.)]

[Illustration: Figure 6.--CHAPMAN'S SEWING MACHINE, first eye-pointed
needle, 1807. (Smithsonian photo 33299-K.)]

A type of rope-stitching machine, which might be considered unimportant
to this study, must be included because of its use of the eye-pointed
needle, the needle that was to play a most important part in the later
development of a practical sewing machine. The earliest reference to the
use of a needle with an eye not being required to be passed completely
through the fabric it was stitching is found in a machine invented by
Edward Walter Chapman, for which he and William Chapman were granted
British patent 3,078 on October 30, 1807. The machine (fig. 6) was
designed to construct belting or flat banding by stitching together
several strands of rope that had been laid side by side. Two needles
were required and used alternately. One needle was threaded and then
forced through the ropes. On the opposite side the thread was removed
from the eye of the first needle before it was withdrawn. The second
needle was threaded and the operation repeated. The needles could also
be used to draw the thread, rather than push it, through the ropes with
the same result. While being stitched, the ropes were held fast and the
sewing frame and supporting carriage were moved manually as each stitch
was made. Such a machine would be applicable only to the work described,
since the necessity of rethreading at every stitch would make it
impractical for any other type of sewing.

Another early machine reported to have used the eye-pointed needle to
form the chainstitch was invented about 1810 by Balthasar Krems,[9] a
hosiery worker of Mayen, Germany. One knitted article produced there was
a peaked cap, and Krems' machine was devised to stitch the turned edges
of the cap,[10] which was suspended