Abstract: A device for producing sewing seam patterns of stitch groups in a work, for example buttonholes, including a holding mechanism for displacing the work intermittently to perform individual sewing operations, and a sewing machine equipped with a work clamping mechanism which is displaceable relative to a needle bar performing a swinging motion, and which engages the work in the area of the seam pattern to be sewn, comprising, a guide arrangement connected to the sewing machine for displacing the sewing machine parallel to the direction of displacement of the clamping mechanism, and a drive mechanism connected to the guide assembly and controlled by movement of the clamping mechanism through which cyclic motions in conformity with stitch formation are imparted to the sewing machine along a distance corresponding to the length of a seam pattern to be formed, which motions are opposite in direction to those of the clamping mechanism.