PROCEDE ET MACHINE D'AMENAGE AUTOMATIQUES DE TISSU POUR PATTES DE PANTALONS

An apparatus and method for automatically feeding individual pieces of fly fabric from a stack of such pieces to a zipper sewing machine, wherein the pieces of fabric in the stack have different shades on their opposite sides and it is desired to feed continuously to the zipper sewing machine successive pieces of the fly fabric with the sides thereof having the same shade oriented in a predetermined position. More specifically the method involves sensing the shade of one of the sides of a given piece of fly fabric in a feed hopper, removing the pieces of fly fabric from the feed hopper and then rotating the piece of fly fabric approximately 90 DEG in response to the sensing step so as to orient the piece of fly fabric with its sensed side disposed in a predetermined position for subsequent feeding to the zipper sewing machine.