Sewing machine needle positioning

An electronically controlled sewing machine comprising a frame supporting an endwise reciprocatory and laterally oscillatable needle carrying needle bar, a feed system for feeding a work material through said sewing machine at a selected rate in a selected direction, means for urging said needle bar to selected lateral positions and for constraining said feed system to feed work material at a selected rate in a selected direction, means for actuating said needle bar into endwise reciprocatory motion and said feed system into feeding motion, a solid state memory means for retaining digital code words representative of needle stitch position and of feed increment from a previous stitch position in a sequence of stitches for a stitch pattern, an arm shaft position sensing means for sequentially releasing needle position and feed increment information from said memory to said urging and constraining means substantially at opposite extremes of said endwise reciprocatory motion of said needle bar for implementing said stitches to form a pattern, means for choosing one of a needle up and needle down position, means responsive to a signal from said choosing means for initiating slow speed operation of said actuating means, and means for fast stop braking of said actuating means in response to said arm shaft position sensing means sensing the position chosen by said choosing means.