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O*NET detailed work activityOperate sewing equipment
Stays humanHands-on work
8 jobs17 tasks
This is physical, in-person work with real objects, tools, equipment and places that change from day to day. AI can't do it for you.
Part of Sew garments or materials, under the O*NET work activity group Handling and Moving Objects. Individual tasks below can carry a different label when their own wording calls for it (0 AI-ready, 0 AI-assist, 17 stays human).
Tasks built on this activity
- Sew garments, using needles and thread or sewing machines.
- Switch on machines, lower pressure feet or rollers to secure parts, and start machine stitching, using hand, foot, or knee controls.
- Operate or tend machines to join, decorate, reinforce, or finish shoes and shoe parts.
- Assemble garment parts and join parts with basting stitches, using needles and thread or sewing machines.
- Stitch or glue endpapers, bindings, backings, or signatures, using sewing machines, glue machines, or glue and brushes.
- Turn knobs to adjust stitch length and thread tension.
- Turn knobs, screws, and dials to adjust settings of machines, according to garment styles and equipment performance.
- Repair or replace soles, heels, and other parts of footwear, using sewing, buffing and other shoe repair machines, materials, and equipment.
- Start and operate or tend machines, such as single or double needle serging and flat-bed felling machines, to automatically join, reinforce, or decorate material or articles.
- Operate sewing machines or sew upholstery by hand to seam cushions and join various sections of covering material.
- Turn setscrews on needle bars, and position required numbers of needles in stitching machines.
- Fill shuttle spools with thread from a machine's bobbin winder by pressing a foot treadle.
- Perform specialized or automatic sewing machine functions, such as buttonhole making or tacking.
- Sew ends of new material to leaders or to ends of material in pressing machines, using sewing machines.
- Turn screws to regulate size of staples.