Schiffli embroidery machine
Máquina de bordar Schiffli
- Date
- 1863 · confidence medium
- Place
- St. Gallen, Switzerland
- Credited to
- Isaak Gröbli
- Field
- Tools
What it is
A machine with hundreds of needles and boat-shaped shuttles (schiffli) guided by a pantograph that embroiders many copies of the same design simultaneously. It industrialised embroidery and embroidered lace.
Gröbli patented the machine in 1863 building on Josué Heilmann's hand embroidery machine (1828), which already used double-pointed needles and a pantograph. The Swiss embroidery industry adopted it quickly in the 1870s.
What it led to
- St. Gallen as the world capital of machine embroidery
- cheap lace and embroidery for clothing and linens
- computer-controlled industrial embroidery in the 20th century