Tonight, after I'm done writing, I'm going over a quilt top for repairs. My sister, who loves to decorate with quilts, sent me the quilt she has now had for about twenty years. It was a tied quilt, rather than a stitched one, so the batting had shifted and lumped through the years. She had the idea that she would just cut all the batting out and replace it, but once the batting was out, she was overwhelmed. So she sent it to me, and I'm going to machine quilt it with fresh batting. I took a few evenings to seam rip the quilt top from the backing, and ordered some new backing fabric, since the old backing was looking thin. When a quilt is tied, the quilter takes widely spaced stitches in yarn, then ties them down, like tacking. It's faster, but the effect can get lumpy after a lot of use. I almost exclusively machine quilt, sandwiching the layers together with safety pins, then running them through the machine. I'm going to need to clear off the sewing table completely for this one, since it's bigger than my usual projects. Then I sew bias around the edges and bind it. It's a process, and I tend to only do one quilt a year, if I get that ambitious.
Usually, the last quarter of the year is my busiest time, and a project like this would fall by the wayside. I was looking at my ledger from last year, and estimate that I was in the middle of four different custom commissions at this time. Over the next six weeks, I would do another few, plus aprons, petticoats, and a small mountain of skirts and belts for a vendor. I'm downright boring by comparison this year, and I'm thinking that perhaps I need this slowdown, as maddening as it is. I'm certainly doing more projects for my family.
Last weekend, I met up with a friend for a dropoff at the costume studio. Liz, who runs Pink Depford, was at the end of her patience with threading her industrial serger, and so I offered to take a look at it with fresh eyes. Just about every recreational sewist I know loves the idea of a serger for finishing edges, but dreads threading them. There are a lot of moving parts, so it's a bear, especially if you don't do it all the time. Industrials are especially difficult, as they are built to do the same thing as a domestic serger, but much faster. Therefore, all the thread paths are much more secure and therefore, more difficult to access.
It turned out that Liz had done it all correctly, but had gotten confused near the end because two pieces of machinery looked very similar. It didn't help that you basically had to sit on the floor to get a good look at the one that you needed to work with, and then you needed to work with two pairs of tweezers in tandem to get the thread into the proper path. The nice thing is, though, she won't have to rethread anything for a long time, as long as she keeps track of her threads.
Some quick tips for serger happiness:
-Line up your cones from smallest amount to thread to largest, left to right. That's the order in which you should put them on your machine. If you're using the same color for a long time, take a moment and rotate the cones for even use after they start to look uneven in the other direction.
-There is a threading map on the inside of the door on the front of the machine. The four threading paths are usually marked with different colors. Thread the first path to the right, then work your way left. Pay careful attention to whether the thread should be in front of or behind various pieces of machinery.
-Check for debris between the blade and the edge of the machine bed. It can cause a variety of issues.
-When running the machine after rethreading it, put a piece of fabric in, as the newly placed threads somehow behave better that way. There's a chance you are going to have to rethread a few things. It's a rookie thing. And a veteran thing. And a pretty much everyone thing. Sergers are typically picky, but once you have them running happily, you're good to go for a long time.
-If you are just changing colors, cut the old threads off at the cone, then use square knots to tie the new color on. Lift the presser foot to release all the tension disks, then gently pull each thread through individually. If you're lucky, you won't have to rethread anything.
-If you only have two or three cones of the color you're working with, use a similar color on the two paths on the left. They are the straight stitches that hold the serge together, so a different color will be less obvious. They also use up the least amount of thread, so if you have to resort to using small spools of thread, you'll have better luck with supplies being adequate.
-Don't serge when you're exhausted. My rule is no serging, clipping, or trimming past midnight. Tired people do dumb things, and the blade on the serger means that permanent damage can be done. If you're doing something that would work better without the blade, it can be flipped up or dropped, based on your serger model, but be careful not to put your fabric through the machine in a way that bunches or overwhelms the machine. It's a swift way to end up rethreading or sending it to the repair shop.
-Your serger blade is for trimming, not cutting. Cut your fabric, then serge it. Some fabrics can be very hard on sergers if the blade is cutting a lot of fabric off.
-If you are serging an inside corner or curve, loosely fold the fabric to make it close to a straight line and proceed slowly. It might take practice, but it's really nice when it works out well.
-The next time Wawak has a sale on serger cones (Typically, the cones run about $2.50 each on sale), stock up on white, black, a medium gray, and, if you're feeling flush, a couple of your most-sewn colors. Four of each should get you started, and they carry the same standard colors year in and year out, so you'll be able to add replacement cones as you go. Wawak took over Atlanta Thread a few years back, so they have a very nice variety of good brands.
-Do not, under any circumstance, use a blade to open the cones. Hook a pin under the plastic to get the perforated strip started, then open it from there. If you use a blade, you stand the chance of nicking the thread, creating the maddening cycle of the thread having breaks every few feet, causing you to rethread the serger approximately eleventy billion times. Do not use a blade to open serger cones, no matter how clever you think you are.
There you go. The secrets of serging. Be prepared for your friends to think you are deeply impressive, because serging looks fancy and professional. It also helps your projects last longer, because it cuts down on fraying. And also looks fancy. So fancy.
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