Cloth piece supply apparatus and method

A cloth piece supply machine for conveying successive cloth pieces in a stack, picking up the cloth pieces one by one from the top of the stack and supplying the cloth pieces, with their front faces facing in the same direction, to a subsequent station, said machine comprising:

• (A) a cloth piece conveying apparatus situated under a cloth piece pick-up position, in which the cloth pieces accommodated in the stack in a cloth piece receiving box are to be picked up one by one from the top of the stack and are to be supplied to the subsequent station, and having a conveying path for conveying a plurality of said receiving boxes succeeding to said pick-up position;
• (B) a cloth piece pick-up apparatus situated in said cloth piece pick-up position, said cloth piece pick-up apparatus including (i) pressing means for pressing one end of the top cloth piece from above, and (ii) a catch roller having catch needles on a part of circumferential surface thereof and movable toward and away from another end of the top cloth piece, said catch roller being adapted to be driven for rotation to feed the top cloth piece to move the top cloth piece in a direction away from said pressing means;
• and
• (C) a cloth piece feed apparatus situated adjacent to a cloth piece discharge port of said cloth piece pick-up apparatus for feeding the cloth pieces, with front faces facing in the same direction, to the subsequent station.