this is in contrast with prior art stitching machines that either must deform a tubular garment to conform to a planer needle plate or leave a gap between the garment and the planer needle plate referring next to fig2 shown is a perspective front view of the lower arm assembly 200 in a disassembled form as depicted in this embodiment the lower arm assembly 200 includes among other components a non planer needle plate 202 a trimmer assembly 204 that couples to a push pull cable 206 via a push rod 205 for a knife of the trimmer assembly 204 and a push cable 208 that couples to a selector of the trimmer assembly 204 via a push rod 207 also shown are an axial reference 210 depicting an axial direction and a radial reference 212 depicting a radial direction perpendicular to the axial direction relative to the arm assembly 200 as discussed further herein a knife of the trimmer assembly 204 in several embodiments is capable of trimming a thread passing through the aperture 214 of the needle plate 202 while translating along the axial direction 210 e g without substantial radial translation in this way the amount of space occupied by the trimmer assembly 204 is substantially reduced thus allowing the needle plate 202 to be sized and configured to curve around the trimmer assembly 204.