Invention

For this eleventh day of #historyinherhands , I offer a pinking machine. Pinking machines replaced pinking dies or pinking irons in the second half of the nineteenth century. No longer did a dressmaker or milliner need to cut scallops an inch or so at a time. Lengths of silk could be quickly run through a pinker with the turn of a crank. This meant yards and yards of decorative trim could be created in a fraction of time with a fraction of effort. As the twentieth century progressed pinking machines were replaced with pinking scissors and pinked fabric transitioned from decoration to utility hidden inside garments.