Mizkaki

Jim,

Originally sewing machine needles did not have a scarf. The scarf was added when it was found that the hook needed to be closer to the needle to prevent skipped stitches such as in the zig zag machines. The hook was already close to the needle, but with ZZ stitches the thread loop is sometimes not large enough to always be caught by the hook. Remember that in zig zag stitching the hook catches the loop either on the far right or far left when the needle has risen a bit more and has now has a reduced the loop size. With staight stitching the loop is caught in the middle when the loop is at it's largest. So a scarf which is actually a 'cut out' area of the needle allows the hook to be more likely to not miss the loop.

Confused? Iknow I was when I was first learning all this.