Abstract: Apparatus for simultaneously sewing two coupled stringers of a slide fastener onto portions of a carrier to opposite sides of an elongated slit therein, in which the carrier is elastic in the direction of the slit, in which a slide carrying a device for releasably holding one end of the slide fastener and one end of the carrier in the region of the slit therein is movable along an elongated guide rail fastened at one end to a two-needle sewing machine in the region of the needle plate of the latter, and in which the slide is biased with a substantially contact force in a direction toward the other end of the guide rail, that is in a direction opposite to that in which the slide fastener and the carrier move during the sewing operation to thereby keep the elastic carrier during the sewing operation under constant tension.

Abstract: A multiple-needle sewing machine has a presser foot and first and second feed dogs for an upper and a lower layer of the carrier material into a slit of which this slide fastener is to be sewn. An arm is mounted on the sewing machine and can pivot in a horizontal plane between a position in which the material and the slide fastener are placed onto the arm and maintained in a predetermined relationship relative to one another, and a second position in which the material and the slide fastener are supplied, while still being maintained in this predetermined relative position, to the feed dogs which engage the material and advance it as the sewing machine sews the slide fastener to the material.