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Lock stitch


A lockstitch is the most common mechanical stitch made by a sewing machine. The term "single needle stitching", often found on dress shirt labels, refers to lockstitch.

The lockstitch uses two threads, an upper and a lower. Lockstitch is so named because the two threads, upper and lower, "lock" (entwine) together in the hole in the fabric which they pass through. The upper thread runs from a spool kept on a spindle on top of or next to the machine, through a tension mechanism, through the take-up arm, and finally through the hole in the needle. Meanwhile the lower thread is wound onto a bobbin, which is inserted into a case in the lower section of the machine below the material.

To make one stitch, the machine lowers the threaded needle through the cloth into the bobbin area, where a rotating hook (or other hooking mechanism) catches the upper thread at the point just after it goes through the needle. The hook mechanism carries the upper thread entirely around the bobbin case, so that it has made one wrap of the bobbin thread. Then the take-up arm pulls the excess upper thread (from the bobbin area) back to the top, forming the lockstitch. Then the feed dogs pull the material along one stitch length, and the cycle repeats.

Ideally, the lockstitch is formed in the center of the thickness of the material—that is to say: ideally the upper thread entwines the lower thread in the middle of the material. The thread tension mechanisms, one for the upper thread and one for the lower thread, prevent either thread from pulling the entwine point from out of the middle of the material.

The geometry of the lockstitch is controlled by the presence or absence of:

In older machines, the needle and feed motion is controlled by mechanical cams. Some modern household machines offer a slot for user-replaceable custom stitch cams. In more recent designs, the needle and feed motion are directly motorized.

Straight stitch geometry is produced when the needle has no sideways movements and when the feed dogs are following only in the normal forward "four motion" movement.

Because its two threads run straight and parallel, a straight stitch is not natively stretchable.


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