New Toy!

Surprise!  It was for me too -- this little beauty was a birthday gift for yours truly this week.  Having never used a serger before, it was quite daunting to pick one out in the store.  I chose this one because it came from a store that will give me free lessons on it for as long as it takes to figure it out.  I figured extra stitches and features weren't really worth it if the machine sat in the corner gathering dust because I didn't know how to use it.

I have now serged a sample of just about every type of material I had on hand.  My sewing room is filled with serged bits of t-shirts, jeans, quilting cotton, fleece, flannel, linen.... well, you get the idea.

I also lucked into a 50% off one day sale at one of the local fabric stores on New Year's Day.  I bought three patterns for pajamas and clothes for Little Man as well as monkey-print cotton flannel for the first pair of pjs.  I also got three meters of ecru waffle-weave fabric for making napkins.  After serging the first napkin I am glad I have lessons waiting for me.  Although I was able to figure out on my own how to thread the machine (no small feat), how to do all the stitches, and how to adjust each tension, there is so much more to serging than what is in the manual.  The right stitch for the specific application, the type of thread that gives the best result for the project -- and things I don't even know about yet.  My napkin issue was that I did rolled edges that looked great when first complete, but looked ragged after the wash as little tufts of fabric came through the serged edge.  Apparently this is fixable with a different thread and a stitch that is more suitable to the fabric.

Expect to see more sewing projects in the near future!  I promise it will be more than just serged scraps next time.