A sewing machine has a group of pattern cams arranged to cooperate with a needle to produce a pattern per cycle rotation thereof, a user-operated pattern selecting device arranged to be manipulated for selecting the pattern cams to control a lateral swinging movement of the needle, a machine stopping device, pattern cycle selecting device operated to select one of pattern cycles to automatically stop the sewing machine after a selected pattern has been formed up in a selected pattern cycle, a device for detecting a termination of a pattern cycle and producing an electrical signal each time it detects the termination of the pattern cycle, a counter device responding to a predetermined number of the electrical signals of the pattern cycle detecting device to produce a pulse signal, and machine stopping device responding to the pulse signal of the counter device to operate the machine stopping device to stop the sewing machine.