A Long Overdue Homage to the Zigzag Stitch

I’m going to begin this blog with a question:  How many of your sewing machines can sew a straight stitch?  Raise your hands.  Go ahead.  I’ll wait.

If you sew on a machine, it stitches a straight stitch.  All sewing machines will stitch a nice row of even stitches.  I’ve heard some machines make a prettier straight stitch than others.  There are those of us Featherweight owners who will swear on all we hold precious that a 221 or 222K makes the prettiest stitch out there.  Others will claim a Juki 2010Q has the straight stitch to beat all straight stitches. Bernina fans like their machines’ straight stitches, too.  Most machines will even offer a variety of straight stitches – the triple stitch, double stitch, etc.  The straight stitch is why the domestic sewing machine was invented – to ease the burden of the women who, at one time, had to make all their families’ clothing by hand.  It sped up the process and allowed the women to have more “free time.”  The straight stitch is the bedrock of our sewing machines.

Now let me ask you another question.  How many of your sewing machines can make a zigzag stitch?  With very few exceptions, I’d wager most of your machines can at least perform one type of zigzag stitch, and in many cases more than one.  Quilters almost take this stitch for granted.  Unless you use a zigzag stitch to sew your binding on or as a decorative stitch, we generally don’t tend to cue into this stitch.  I mean sure, if you make garments, you may use a zigzag or pinking shears to finish your seams so they won’t ravel, but maybe not for much more than that.  It’s not that we neglect this feature on our machine, it’s simply we don’t think about it often.

Third question:  How many stitches can your machine make besides the straight stitch and the zigzag stitch?  Go on.  Count.  Grab your manual and check.  I’ll wait….

My Janome M7 Continental has 400 stitches and with its stitch composer, the actual number of stitch types is limitless.  I have read in several places that the average number of stitch types that come on a basic sewing machine is 17.  That’s a lot of different types of stitches for us to use and enjoy.  But guess what?   If someone hadn’t taken the time to invent a sewing machine with a zigzag stitch, none of these stitches would be possible. 

That’s right.  That high-tech embroidery machine or equally high-tech sewing machine is primarily based on this:

The first zigzag sewing machine. 

The zigzag stitch fundamentally changed the world of sewing.  It changed what we could do with a machine, and it changed the sewing machine manufacturing world.  And while it wasn’t the only reason Singer’s stopped manufacturing wonderful straight- stitch-only machines like the Featherweight (cost of production was the primary reason), it certainly weighted that decision.  When faced with the decision of purchasing a machine which would make only a straight stitch over a machine that could make a straight stitch and a zigzag, most women back then would make the same decision we would today – pay a bit more money and have more options. 

Let’s have a look at what it took to develop a zigzag machine, how a machine performs this stitch, how it ties into today’s multi-stitch machines, and how the zigzag stitch also relieved our foremother’s of additional hand sewing.

Who Invented the Zigzag Sewing Machine

If you remember from my blog: https://sherriquiltsalot.com/2023/09/13/the-sewing-machine-renaissance-part-i/  and: https://sherriquiltsalot.com/2023/09/20/the-sewing-machine-renaissance-part-2/ you know we had a workable, straight stitch sewing machine by 1851.  Elias Howe and Issac Singer worked out their differences, there was a patent trust developed, and bingo, bango, bongo, the housewife had a domestic sewing machine of sorts.  As soon as the Singer company gave Issac the boot (because as my paternal grandmother used to say, “That man is a piece of work.”), the Singer company began full-on development of a line of straight stitch sewing machines, each a little better than the one before.  The culmination of the idea of a straight stitch sewing machine reached its apex with the Featherweight (in my own personal opinion).  These little jewels are still sought after today and work wonderfully. 

However, there still were some steps women had to perform by hand.  Buttonholes,  for instance.  If you remember your Little House books, Laura worked as a seamstress to help earn money for her family.  The woman she worked for sewed shirts by machine, but Laura had to work buttonholes by hand because the machine couldn’t do a zigzag stitch.  Buttonholes and seam finishing were done exclusively via manual labor because there was no other way to do them.  Then in 1873, a woman changed all of this.  I would like to say this person was a fed-up seamstress who was tired of working hundreds of buttonholes by hand, but that would be wrong.  The inventor of the zigzag sewing machine was Helen Blanchard, and she did it for the money.

Born in 1840 in Portland, Maine, Blanchard showed an aptitude for mechanical devices at an early age.  She tinkered with many different types of inventions, but didn’t begin patenting her inventions until her family ran into financial difficulties.  After business losses from the panic of 1866 and the death of her father, Blanchard and her family had to sell their property.  Shortly afterwards, she borrowed money for her first patent.  She patented the zigzag sewing machine in 1873.  This sewing machine was different from the standard straight stitch machines of this time, as the zigzag made for a studier seam.  With the success of this zigzag machine, Blanchard continued to make improvements to both straight stitch and zigzag machines and sewing machine needles.  In 1881, she established the Blanchard Over-Seam Company of Philadelphia.  Her company was very profitable, and she was eventually able to buy back her family’s property. 

Helen Blanchard’s improvements to the sewing machine allowed for the industrial growth of sewing machines.  Twenty-two of Blanchard’s 28 machines were installed in large factories, saving time and money in the commercial sewing industry.  Although most of her patents relate to sewing, she experimented with other ideas, including a patented idea for a pencil sharpener.

With all her contributions to the field of sewing machines, their accessories, and sewing machine needles, you’d think Helen Blanchard would be enshrined in the Quilters Hall of Fame or some other related sewing Hall of Fame.  Nope.  She was admitted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2006 for her US Patent No 141,987 for the Zigzag Sewing Machine. 

How the Zigzag Stitch Works

Singer was the first sewing machine manufacturer to jump on board the zigzag stitch band wagon.  Blanchard’s zigzag machine was designed for use in factories; Singer wanted domestic machines to also have this feature.  Since the company already had so many straight stitch machines in production, they invented an accessory which could be used on the straight stitch machines to produce a zigzag stitch.  And they were able to do this with pop-in cams called “The Singer Automatic Zigzagger.” 

These cams replaced the machine’s presser foot with its own and drew mechanical power from the needle clamp (which meant only straight stitch machines that had a needle clamp with a side-facing thumb screw would work).  It created the zigzag stitch by moving the fabric from side to side.  This cam had a series of grooves on its underside which, along with the movement of the feed dogs, shifted the fabric from side to side, allowing the machine to zigzag.  Singer produced a series of cams allowing for as many as four different zigzag stitches.  The YS Japanese Sewing Machine and White Sewing Machine companies led the way for other machine brands, producing their own sets of cams designed for low-shank machines.  All of the cams had a width control (also known as “bite”). 

The cams worked okay, but there were problems.  Thread loops could form on the back, the width of the stitches might vary wildly in a single seam, the fabric would pucker, or only the bobbin thread would form a zigzag stitch – the top stitches would remain perfectly straight.  Somedays it would take more patience than thread to sew a single zigzagged seam.  However, overall, cams were a workable solution to a lot of sewing issues.  Eventually the cam moved from being a part of the needle clamp to the top of the machine.  As a child growing up in the 1970’s, I can remember my mom’s sewing machine using cams.  This was a big deal for the Singer machines – with those cams a Singer Touch and Sew could make more types of stitches than any other machine.  Singer Sewing Machine Company  dominated the market for a long time.*

But as time and technology marched on, computers, motherboards, and computerized mechanisms became normal for use in homes.  We had microwaves, digital watches, desk top computers and computerized sewing machines.  In 1980, circuit boards made their way into the domestic sewing machines and completely changed the way machines stitched.  Instead of the fabric moving to make a zigzag stitch, the needle moved to make the stitch, and the fabric continued to be fed vertically over the feed dogs, resulting in a smoother, prettier stitch.  To put our sewing history in context in a personal context, my wonderful mother is 84 years old.  She had a standard straight stitch Singer with only a cam for a zigzag stitch and eventually moved to a Singer Touch and Sew with multiple cams for multiple stitches.  I’m 62 years old.  I’ve never owned a machine which only performed two stitches or took cams.  When I began sewing in earnest in my twenties, my first “basic” machine was computerized and had multiple stitches, including three kinds of zigzags. 

Why This is Important

Driven by the concept that a domestic sewing machine could make both a straight stitch and a zigzag stitch, Helen Blanchard and those innovators who came after her pursued two ideas: the notion a domestic machine would make sturdier, finished seams and — since the machine could make a zigzag stitch — it would also make better buttonholes.  As a result, technology moved us from this:

To this:

And from cams to the computerized technology which allows our sewing machine needles to move in all directions. We now have hundreds of different types of stitches, automatic buttonholes which accurately fit buttons, the blind hem stitch, the ability to sew knits, and sew on buttons by machine.   We have domestic embroidery machines which a few generations ago weren’t in anyone’s wildest sewing dreams.   Instead of owning a set of cams made only for use with one machine, we now own lots of different types of sewing machine feet for all these stitches — feet which are often interchangeable with other low-shank machines. 

All because of the pursuit of a zigzag sewing machine.   As quilters, we may not use this stitch often, but we should be thankful for it and Helen Blanchard each and every time we sit down at our tech-savvy sewing machines. 

*Let’s pause and take a minute to talk about Singer Sewing Machine Company.  For years – nearly since it’s inception in 1851 – Singer dominated the world of domestic sewing machines, halting production for only two years during World War II.  It maintained its dominance throughout most of the 1960’s.  However the Japanese and European sewing machines began to eat at Singer’s bottom line because they were the first to come out with zigzag capabilities for most of their machines, leaving Singer  struggling to catch up, since they originally only made cams for the Featherweight. The sewing machine market began to shift somewhat and by the 1960’s, Singer began to diversify into other fields such as audio and photography.  Eventually, in order to survive, Singer had to sell off some of their diversified fields to maintain their cash flow. However despite so much effort, by 1999 Singer declared bankruptcy (this process needs its own blog).  It was acquired by Kohlberg and Company, who also acquired Husqvarna and Pfaff.  Eventually all of this merged into the SVP Group. 

Until Next Week, From My Studio to Yours,

Love and Stitches (both straight and zigzag),

Sherri and Felix