Patent ID: 8220402

Claim:
A sewing machine including a sewing machine bed, a needle plate provided on the sewing machine bed, a feed dog provided in the sewing machine bed below the needle plate, a needle bar, and a sewing needle attached to the lower end of the needle bar, the sewing machine being capable of mode switching between a normal sewing mode in which the feed dog is activated to move above and below the needle plate to feed a workpiece cloth longitudinally in synchronism with a vertical movement of the needle bar, and a free motion sewing mode in which the feed dog is inactivated in a lowered position below the needle plate to allow the workpiece cloth to be manually fed, the sewing machine comprising: a feed dog driver that drives the feed dog longitudinally and vertically; a feed dog switcher that activates and inactivates the feed dog; a first instruction issuer that instructs execution of fastening stitching at a beginning of pattern sewing sequence; a second instruction issuer that instructs execution of fastening stitching at an end of pattern sewing sequence; a fastening stitching data storage that stores fastening stitching data for executing fastening stitching on the workpiece cloth being fed longitudinally by the feed dog; and a controller that, when in the free motion sewing mode, activates the feed dog by the feed dog switcher in response to an incoming instruction signal from the first instruction issuer or the second instruction issuer to execute fastening stitching through control of feed dog driver based on the fastening stitching data.