Over the weekend my DD asked me to make a fleece blanket for her youngest son. We went and picked out the fleece he wanted and I also picked up some variegated woolly nylon. Washed up the fleece ,just because I like to work on clean fabric and trimmed it up, serged it up in about 5 minutes. It's not rocket science but it sure make grammie look like a hero when the little guy says, You made my blanket already.Sergers are a gift from some superior grandma being.They just make you look so good. Juno
Too right! Take a piece of fabric, put a rolled hem on it, and you have a first class tablecloth, runner, or cover. How hard is that? But the end result is so professional looking. You gotta love it.
Beth, it really is practice, practice and more practice, at least for me. When I start a new project I practice on lots of scraps until I'm happy with the stitch then go to the good stuff. I also make a sample, write everything down and staple it to my manual. I have several books on serging but found that many times I get better information from the machine manufacturer's web site. I have a Janome 644D and they have lots of helpful hints, as well as a forum. I also look at other manufactures site and see what they have to offer in the way of advice. I also google a specific problem and see what I get back. One of my favorite quick projects is to buy an inexpensive bed sheet I like, serge a rolled hem all around it and make a new table cloth to suit the occasion. I will also use a bed sheet to make matching napkins. Juno
It took me almost four days of cursing, screaming, beating my head against the wall, and yes I'll admit it, taking a few wee nips before I finally got my Bernina 335DS to work as a five thread. Must have unthreaded and rethreaded that darn machine one thousand times, finally at the 11th hour, things "clicked" and voila, all five threads coverstitch. Now sadly will never use it for anything else but 5 threads as don't wish to undo the fourth and fifth, only to have to redo them again. *LOL*
Will say if your machine has a workbook as opposed to just the manuals, try and get ahold of one. Nabbed the blue workbook for Bernina sergers and it made so many things much more clearer than what had been in the manual.
Someone posted this advice in the group, and it is worth repeating: practice, practice and practice again threading your serger until you can do it correctly in your sleep. Just as with any sewing machine,
9/10's of the problems IMHO are caused by improper threading and or tension settings. If the manual tells you to thread the unit one way, don't think you've found a short cut or can do it better unless you KNOW you can and get the same results.
Cold weather is coming, so one day when you have time (yes, I know
*LOL*), sit down with your serger, it's manual/books (or a good general serger book), lots of material, and keep at it until you get your bearings.
i was lucky to get the manual - xerox copy online for 15$ + 5$ shipping
I will say that I CAN thread the damn thing now . It took me hours to do it the first time but I've got that down. its the tension that I'm scared of. and differential feed.
my boss told me i had to burn some vacation. I'm SEWING!
I've not owned for overlocker for all that long so am still getting to be as comfortable with it as I am my various sewing machines. I recently bought a piece of chiffon with which to make a scarf and spent quite a while reading the various overlocker/serger books I own to check out how to do a rolled hem. I can't tell you how proud I was of the finished product. I showed it to everyone who'd stand still long enough to see it.
I think I'm now over my apprehension about its speed and what I thought might be my inability to manouvre fabric through it in anything more complex than a straight line.
When I bought my Bernina overlocker (an 800DL 4 thread), I was warned that when threading it, the eye of the lower looper must only just be showing from beyond the underside of the stitch plate and that if the eye was extended out too far out beyond the stitch plate, the thread would keep breaking.
There were no such instruction in the book which came with the machine but I have found that the advice I was given was absolutely correct.
Does anyone else have one of these machine and have had the same experience?
And for those who are more experienced with overlockers, does anyone have any idea would this would be the case?
I don't know that you are doing something wrong.. Sergers take a lot of practice (at least that is how it seems to me)... I really like the finished edge you can achieve with the serger, but I admit that I machine baste my serged seams on my SM *first*, and double check placement, ease, etc,. Then if all is well, I serge the seams to nicely finish them.. my middle-aged hands are not always as nimble as I might like, and this prevents costly errors for me.
I find with my Bernina that it doesn't matter at all... What matter with it (and all the others I've owned) is NOT getting the threads tangled, crossed or in the wrong order as you thread it.
Was that the threading directions they gave you? If so it may have been a creative way to explain how the looper threads needed to be done for your machine. For example for all sergers the directions are to thread the upper looper thread first. =20
I have a Huskylock 936, and as with all sergers, the placement of the looper threads as they come out of the eye of the loopers, and in relation to each other, is the important thing.
If that's not what you meant, sorry for the misinterpretation :)
Otherwise my serger doesn't have any problems with the thread breaking if the thread extends beyond a certain point after threading it.
I also don't seem to have that problem on my 800DL which I purchased in
2004. I wonder if something has changed. In fact, despite much hard use, I can't recall a single thread break ever.... not once (now it will surely happen!). I've threaded it wrong but I am pretty sure I never had a thread break. My instructions said to turn the handwheel until the needles are fully raised so I assume this gets everything in the correct position for threading as it's always worked for me. The auto-threader for the lower looper does make things considerably easier--- a lot easier than on my first serger, an old BabyLock that I no longer use. Threading that beast used to make me want to cry.
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