Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Giving the serger a go

This past Christmas, my parents and in-laws got together and generously bought me the serger I had been eyeballing on Amazon. As excited as was to receive it, though, I'm afraid it sat in its box for a good 3 months before I got up the courage to get it out and give it a whirl. Because of all the doom-and-gloom postings about finicky sergers on the interwebs, I was afraid to use it before I even got it! I saw a Beginner Serging class on Craftsy and decided to purchase it. I got my Brother 1034D and completed most of the lessons, though I haven't attempted the projects made in the class yet. And surprise, surprise, it's pretty easy! The thing most people find difficult on the serger, the threading, was actually a piece of cake! I mean, there are even step by step pictures on the machine to help you out.

After I got comfortable enough with the serger, I decided to make some clothes for my friends' daughter's birthday. The shorts are the oliver and s puppet show pattern, made with some cute twill I got at Joann's. I mainly used the serger just to finish the seams.


These came together very quickly and I am quite happy with how they turned out!


For this skirt, I kind of, well, just winged it. BUT, I used my serger to ruffle the knit fabric (also picked up at Joann's) as well as to put the whole thing together. I had to do some finagling with the ruffle layers, and it came out a little heavy in the end, but I think it's cute and wearable.


I was going to attempt some t-shirts to go with, but I decided these cute ones from Kohl's were easier and cheaper than making them myself. Call me lazy.

I've actually been doing tons of sewing and knitting, but either they are gifts I don't want to be in the public domain yet, or they are in a state of unfinish that is not really photographable. I have my mom's Mother's Day/birthday presents done, though, and I'm pretty proud of them, I'll show them next weekish!