A sewing-machine is a machine that uses a needle and thread to stitch materials together. The first sewing-machine was patented by Thomas Saint in 1790. It was used to stitch leather through a single-thread-chain stitch. It had a needle with a notch instead of an eye. The thread was fed into the needle automatically in it. It was not a practical machine indeed.
About forty years later i.e. in 1830, Barthelemy Thimmonier of France patented a machine for sewing uniforms for soldiers. It had a hooked needle that moved forward and backward to make a stitch. During these very years Walter Hunt invented a new machine but it was never patented.
The sewing-machine, in its modern form, was patented in 1846 by Elias Howe who is considered to be the inventor of the sewing-machine. It was a practical machine having a needle with an eye near its tip. A shuttle carried the thread underneath the cloth on a small bobbin. The needle carrying the upper thread was fastened to an arm that vibrated on a pivot.