Power Surge-r

posted by Diana

I got a serger two Christmases ago (thanks Dad!) and I've barely mastered using it. I wanted a serger so I could quickly seam up knits and hems and make them look professional and like they wouldn't fall apart.

I read up on reviews and picked out the Brother 1034d. It seemed like the easiest serger to use and like it was good quality for a budget home serger. Plus, everything inside is labelled and color coded with where the threads are supposed to go.

The stock photo.

Even with color-coding, I've had to look up (in the manual!) how to thread my machine each time. But, this thing needs four spools of thread AND tweezers to be threaded properly, so.... I think as long as I get everything in the right spot, I'm doing okay.

After I got my serger, I dug through my stash of projects to be finished and found a couple of practice pieces.

Before serging.

I thrifted these skirts a few years back when I still lived in Boone (Even though it's tiny, Boone is great for thrifting!). They're both vintage and the black one is handmade. I loved the patterns on the skirts, but, unfortunately, they both hit me at the weirdest spot. They were a sort of awkward tea length, but I knew they had potential.

So, I decided to purchase them and hem them. My first step in hemming these skirts was marking where I wanted to cut them. That step took forever. I wanted my hem to be even (of course) and these full skirts have a lot of fabric! The actual serging process only took about five minutes each.

Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of me wearing them before I hemmed them, so you don't get to see how truly awful they were... but, trust me. They made me look like a sad frump-sack.

Here's the skirt you saw last week.

This one is a basic serged hem. I used all four serger threads to create this overlock stitch. In theory, I could fold the serged bit over and top-stitch the hem with my regular sewing machine, but I like the look of the raw edge accompanied by the zig-zag stitch on the heart patch. Plus, I actually wanted the skirt to hit me at my knee... even though I measured several times, it still ended up being a little shorter than I wanted.

On my second skirt, I was practicing the rolled hem, but I think I did it wrong.

I'm honestly not sure how I did it wrong, but it doesn't look like the picture in the manual--I'll have to practice with this technique to figure it out. Regardless, I think this hem looks nicer and more polished than the first hem.

A close up of the hems, for comparison.

These were some great thrift store finds that only took an afternoon to fix up. Now I have two cute, flouncy skirts (at less than $5 a piece) to wear this summer!

Next week, I'll share a tutorial on how to achieve this same effect without any sewing whatsoever.

Happy making!