Patent ID: 8561559

Claim:
A sewing system comprising: a plurality of multi-needle sewing machines provided with a sewing mechanism including a plurality of needle bars, a transfer mechanism that transfers an embroidery frame that holds a workpiece cloth, and a plurality of thread spools associated with the needle bars; and a storage device that is detachably attached to the plurality of sewing machines and that stores embroidery pattern data including a plurality of thread color data, the sewing system being configured to sew an embroidery pattern made of a plurality colors of threads that exceeds maximum number thread colors that can be sewn by a single multi-needle sewing machine with a plurality of multi-needle sewing machines, wherein each of the plurality of multi-needle sewing machines further includes: a data reader that reads the embroidery pattern data from the storage device attached thereto, a thread spool color storage that stores thread color of the thread spools as thread spool color data, a verifier that verifies whether or not the thread color data contained in the embroidery pattern data read by the data reader matches the thread spool color data stored in the thread spool color storage, and a progress information writer that writes at least progress information pertaining to the thread color which was found not to match the thread color data contained in the embroidery pattern data by the verifier, and wherein the sewing system is configured to execute a sewing operation for forming the embroidery pattern on a workpiece cloth at one of the plurality of multi-needle sewing machines by: using a count of thread colors determined by a count of thread color data found to match the thread color data by the verifier, co-operating the sewing mechanism and the transfer mechanism, removing the storage device attached to the one of the plurality of multi-needle sewing machines and attaching the removed storage device to other one or more multi-needle sewing machines, and sewing unsewn portions of the embroidery pattern at each of the other one or more multi-needle sewing machines by: reading the progress information by the data reader, verifying whether or not the thread color data contained in the embroidery pattern data read by the data reader matches the thread spool color data stored in the thread spool color storage, and executing the sewing operation based on a result of the verification.