Abstract: An apparatus for folding a strip of material and supplying the same to a sewing machine which sewingly attach the folded strip of material (B) to a base material (C). The apparatus comprises a movable base (78) reciprocally movable between its standby position and its supply position, a strip of a material support member (87,88) mounted on the movable base (78) for receiving and supporting the strip of material (B) supplied when the movable base (78) is positioned at the standby position, and for transferring the strip of material (B) to the sewing machine bed (121) when the movable base (78) is positioned at the supply position, and a pair of folding plates (117,118) movable toward and away from the strip of material support member (87,88) in a first direction across the strip of material for bending the end poritons of the strip of material (B) into an L-shape, and in a second direction perpendicular to the first direction for bending the L-shaped end portions of the strip of material (B) into a U-shape.

Abstract: A sewing machine in which the start and stop of a main shaft is controlled by a cam mechanism through a motion control mechanism at the sewing cycle corresponding to a predetermined number of stitches. The working position of a work holder is controlled by positional data in original instructions stored in a memory. Additional instruction corresponding to the number of stitches to reach the next stop time point controlled by the cam mechanism is prepared for back-tacking, unless the number of stitches corresponding to the original instructions are equal to an integral multiple of the predetermined number of stitches.