Left handed sewing machines ...

4/1/2014

April Fool's!

NOT! This is a real machine.

Being a lefty myself, it never crossed my mind that the sewing machine is designed to favor lefties. But ...

Since the sewing machine was invented before motors could easily be put into machine for the home, they were either powered with a foot treadle or a hand crank. If you watched the Sewing Machine Documentary I posted on a blog about a week ago, you would know that the treadle was used more in the US and the hand crank in England.

Well, machine designers thought it would be better to have the right hand, since it is dominant for most people and hence the stronger one, be the hand that operated the crank. This meant that everything else is done with the left hand and still is to this day.

But! there is a company in Australia, REVCON, that has been developing, what they are calling, a right handed sewing machine. Read all about it here. And watch this video below.

I've often said to people how sewing was never hard for me. I took to it as a small girl using my Grandmother's treadle machine. I wonder if that had anything to do with being left handed? I have three sisters, so there are four of us ... two right handed and two left, and my mother is left handed, although the Nuns at her Catholic elementary school forced her to use her right hand, which meant she was able to sign her name using both hands, at the same time!

I'm wondering if it is just coincidence that out of the five women in my family, the three of us who are left handed are the sewers and my right handed sisters are not? hmmm ... I would be interested if anyone has an opinion or anecdotal evidence one way or the other.

But, I can't imagine anyone who has worked at a regular sewing machine for years switching to the right handed kind. I made a wedding dress for a friend years ago and she gave me a left handed pair of scissors as a thank you gift.

Really nice ones, Ginghers!

But, hard as I tried, I couldn't use them. Not only was I having trouble guiding them, the main problem was, I didn't have enough strength in my left forearm to cut for more than a few minutes. I've actually measured my two forearms and my right one is 1/2" larger than the left from years of cutting.

12 Comments

thegoosemother

3/31/2014 10:58:18 pm

By the time I got my hands on left-handed scissors, I'd grown so accustomed to cutting with my right hand, I found them difficult to use and finally gave up. There's only two kinds of people in this world; those who are left-handed, and those who wish they were. Also, left-handed people are the only people in their right mind. :p (That's for all the times I heard, "how can you write like that??") The Goose

Andrea

4/1/2014 01:02:37 am

Ah!! so you are left handed, too!

Charity link

4/1/2014 01:22:37 am

How interesting! But I don't think, after sewing since I was eight, that I could ever switch to a "right-handed" machine -- doing everything with my sewing machine is so automatic now that doing anything else would just be completely irritating. :)

Jen in Oz

4/1/2014 10:51:58 am

There's a photo somewhere in the family archives of my late mother in law sitting at a sewing machine (I think this would have been when she was living in South America) that either is a right-handed one, or she's sitting at the back of it. I never knew if she actually knew how to sew or if it was just a staged photo. After both she and my father in law passed away, I inherited HIS sewing machine (but it didn't work well despite being serviced, so it's no longer with us).
PS I'm not left handed (my sister is though, and she doesn't sew at all) but I love the quote: "If right handedness is determined by the development of the left side of the brain, does that mean that only left-handed people are in their right minds?"

Deborah

11/1/2014 07:01:42 pm

It occurred to me more than 15-years ago that sewing machines are designed for left-handed folks. Cramping my right arm and flexing my wrist to thread, change bobbin, feed fabric, pull pins is tiresome. I would so love a basic machine to free my elbow and wrist. Thanks for providing this forum. I eagerly await a machine as I am retiring and would love to take up sewing again...but not with any machine available now. Lefties are lucky in this respect.

Brett

11/17/2014 10:41:05 am

This is nothing new, really. I used to have a Kenmore right-handed sewing machine before my ex sold it. I learned how to sew on my mom's right-handed sewing machine. So, they have made these for at least 50 years, but they are not the norm, and, as a result, I think companies have stopped making them. I certainly cannot find them anymore. I cannot sew on my ex's Pfaff. Hate that thing. I cannot tell you how easy and natural it is to sew on a right-handed sewing machine, being right-handed, and having grown up and always used a right-handed (if that's what they're called) machine.

Anna Parry

2/6/2015 09:45:06 pm

Right handed sewers welcome to the world of the leftie. In a world where so much is set up for right handers, it is unusual to hear them complain about the difficulties when things are set up for the lefties and they have to do what we have always done - adapt. There is no reason why sewing machine configuration shouldn't be changed, provided we lefties aren't forgotten in the process. Just let me have a few moments 'schadenfreude'.

BTW I have used right handed scissors most of my life, when given left handed ones, I couldn't use them, just an example of how we adapt!

2/6/2015 11:43:36 pm

Brett, now I am going in search of an old Kenmore. Thanks for posting. Anna, you made me laugh out loud today and that is not so easy as I live on the coast of Maine and another snow storm is en route. You are so right...I mean so correct. Lefties so rarely have things their way, I almost feel guilty for complaining....almost.

Barbara

3/25/2015 02:56:13 am

I have sewn since I was about 11 and my mother and grandmother were both excellent at needlework so it was inevitable that I would learn to sew. I am a leftie but my mother and grandmother were both right handers. My mum even became a very successful needlework teacher before the UK government changed the curriculum in 1987 and it became very unpopular as Textiles. I always felt though that I was working against the tide, hence my search for info on left handed machines. Admittedly the gubbins to work on is on the left side but I tend to pin left handedly and all these years my fabric crushes through the middle of the machine or I have to find another way of sewing. When I try to pin righthandedly it is so awkward and pinning horizontally I end up breaking and bending so many needles. I guess some of the frustration also comes from finding it difficult to see to thread the needle as I grow older and the automatic threader being useless on my machine. But I guess I should feel grateful now reading that right handers also feel the sewing machine inhibits them. I have used left handed sissors for years and they make life easier cutting out at least.

Deb

4/24/2015 05:41:34 am

I love this post and all the comments. Fellow lefty here sewing since 1964. I joined 4-H because nobody wanted to teach a lefty how to sew since all the other women in the family were right handed. I was very fortunate the county home economist was left handed though she was forced to learn right handed (she later taught herself left handed). She was such an asset and an encouragement. My point is that back then she insisted the standard electric sewing machine in use was actually best used by lefties because on a modern machine the important work of guiding the fabric was done by the left hand. However I do not remember her mentioning anything about right-handed sewing machines but I am fascinated there are some in Australia and will have to check that out next year.

As for scissors, I can use anything for general snipping. But for precision and long cuts I get better results with left handed and particularly true-left dressmaker shears. I have the same Ginghers as in the photo. They are very nice but they were replacements for my beloved Wiss Contura-lite 8-inch left hand dressmaker shears which mysteriously disappeared 20 years ago; but I still have their pinking companion which is another great tool.

Thanks so much for posting, this really made my day.

Nancy Kropf

7/16/2015 11:00:03 am

Where can I buy a used left handed sewing machine??

Debbie Smith

2/16/2019 02:51:22 pm

You may be right, but I'm left handed and I've always had a problem changing the machine needles, and I always put pins in the fabric the wrong way for the machine and have to take them our out put them back in again. I always put it down to machines being designed for right handed people! I can see now why tacking fabric used to be regarded as so important, I can't even begin to imagine how difficult controlling fabric with only your left hand when you are right-hand is.

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Left handed sewing machines ...

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