The company that became known as BERNINA was established in the late 19th century by Karl Friedrich Gegauf in Steckborn, Switzerland. The company is named after "Piz Bernina", the only mountain in the Eastern Alps over 4,000 meters high (that's over 13,000 feet!). The first household sewing machine was brought to market in 1932 by Fritz Gegauf, the son of Karl Friedrich Gegauf, and in 1945 he also brought to market the world's first portable zigzag sewing machine.

Odette Ueltschi-Gegauf, the daughter and successor of Fritz Gegauf, brought to market the first fully electronic BERNINA sewing machine, and her son, Hanspeter Ueltschi is now the fourth generation owner of this family business.

The top priority at BERNINA has always been quality. In order to ensure a consistently high standard of quality, all the component parts of a BERNINA sewing system are measured and tested in a special, air-conditioned, precision measuring room, as they are highly sensitive to differences in temperature.

Three hundred and fifty employees work tirelessly in Steckborn to further develop the BERNINA sewing systems and to live up to their excellent reputation. It takes an average of three years to design a new sewing system comprising some six to eight hundred individual parts and produce a prototype series. A BERNINA has to pass countless tests and undergo endless measurements before it goes to market.