Patent ID: 8082866

Claim:
A sewing machine capable of sewing a manually moved workpiece cloth in free motion, comprising: a carrier that carries the workpiece cloth and being manually moved to move the workpiece cloth; a support element that movably supports the carrier; a movement amount detector that detects an amount of carrier movement; a specifier that specifies a stitch pitch; a comparator that produces a comparison of the amount of carrier movement with the stitch pitch; a regulator provided at the support element and that regulates carrier movement, the regulator including a brake motor and a transmission mechanism that transforms carrier movement oriented in a predetermined direction into a rotary movement of the brake motor; and a controller that controls the regulator such that the amount of carrier movement does not exceed the stitch pitch by controlling the brake motor into an unrotatable state through the transmission mechanism when determining that the amount of carrier movement is equal to or greater than the stitch pitch based on the comparison produced by the comparator.