Lettuce Edge, Take 2: The Serger.

I was feeling confident enough with my new serger that I decided to break away from the 2 basic stitches I had already learned.  Remember when I shared with you how to do a lettuce edge on a sewing machine?  I didn't have a serger yet, and that's how I had to do it.  Alas, now that I mastered it over there, it was time to master it on the serger.  And I spent all morning trying it out.

It's all new to me, so fiddling with the tension of each thread was a joy. My lowerlooper thread (the blue wheel, far right) kept breaking, then my upperlooper thread kept breaking, then my needle thread.  I mean, if it could happen, it did.  Good news is that I can now thread this thing in my sleep.    We are now very well acquainted.  We are also out of our very short honeymoon phase.  I still love it, don't get me wrong, but now it's time we work on some of our issues.

For those of you who follow me on Facebook (find the link in my sidebar), you now know that I named my sewing machine Ethel a while back, and today I christened the serger Lucy.  Which I think makes me Ricky, since I can't stand their shenanigans but I love them anyway.  Lucy is quirky and full of personality, Ethel is a steadfast helper who can do almost anything Lucy can, and then some on her own.  I think they'll get along nicely. If they don't make me or my house explode.

My machine came with a manual that gave general settings for each type of stitch, and that helps a lot.  But from the factory settings, I could tell mine had a personality and would vary a bit on it.

I started with the basic setup for a napkin finish rolled edge (narrow), which basically has the

• differential set as low as you can
• The differential on a serger is a great thing - I had no idea before I got one.  Basically, you have two sets of feed dogs on a serger, and they can either feed at the same rate, or you can set one to go more slowly than the other.  So, you can set it to move the further feed dogs at a slower rate than the front ones, therefore pulling your fabric tightly while you serge. Hand stretching the fabric, like I had to do with my sewing machine, is unnecessary.
• normalish tension in the right needle and upper looper
• high tension in the lower looper.  
• Check your manual for settings that apply to your machine, or play around with it.  If you feel like rethreading it multiple times.... :)
• On my machine, I needed to remove the stitch finger first (read below for details)

This is where I ended up with my lettuce edge on the first go, but I wasn't quite satisfied with the results.  And I was still breaking thread left and right. Thankfully the serger came with a pair of tweezers to help thread it.  Can you spot what I did? I left out something in my setup.

Turns out I had missed one tiny step in the lineup to get this stitch going - removing the stitch finger.  This is the little guide that the stitches set up on as you sew.  That's what caused my stitches to be so big and loopy.  Here's what mine looks like. It snapped out easily.

After I realized my mistake, it was smooth sailing.  Here's my lovely pile of scraps. I'm so happy to see them, isn't it silly?

And the new, improved, as-it-should-be lettuce edge. Woohoo!

The pink fabric should look familiar - it's now a serged version of the Woodland Fairy Skirt. I even finished the tulle edges on both the layers, all the way around. And it took no time at all, and it even fed well into my machine.  I'll get pics later today, but in case you need a reminder, here's the previous version:

In case you were wondering, I absolutely LOVE my serger. Doing all I did tonight would have taken me easily 2 or 3 times longer on only my sewing machine.  AND my hands don't even ache from stretching the fabric.  If you were waiting to invest in a serger for no reason but that you were unsure how much you'd use it, BUY IT.  The amount of time it has saved me already has made it worthwhile.  And plus, it is SO much easier to work on knit fabrics with a serger, at least to me.

Have a great day!