So I've been toying with purchasing a serger for a while now. Pretty much every time I veer into garment sewing territory, I get the itch. "This would be so much easier if I had a serger" runs on play back the entire time I am sewing. Usually my garment sewing kick is incredibly short lived and I forget about it for a few months.
Enter the Julia Cardigan. I saw someone post about this cardigan on Instagram, and immediately decided I needed to make it. I am eternally cold at work, so cardigans are always in short supply, and I can never have enough.
I have never ever sewn with knits so I ventured in to Joanns, picked a jersey lighweight knit and a stretch needle, took advice from the lady at the cutting counter "just go slow, use a jersey needle and a zig zag stitch," went home and sewed with regular sewing machine. All was well, the cardigan turned out great, sewing with knits was not at all intimidating and I decided I needed many many more Julia cardigans in my closet. This pretty much sealed the deal that a serger was now in my near future. A few Google and Pinterest searches, and I learned that a serger is pretty much a knit's best friend and the deal was sealed. A few more Google-ings of "best beginner serger" led me to the Brother 1034D, and 2 days later this guy showed up on my door - thank you Amazon Prime!
I have never ever sewn with knits so I ventured in to Joanns, picked a jersey lighweight knit and a stretch needle, took advice from the lady at the cutting counter "just go slow, use a jersey needle and a zig zag stitch," went home and sewed with regular sewing machine. All was well, the cardigan turned out great, sewing with knits was not at all intimidating and I decided I needed many many more Julia cardigans in my closet. This pretty much sealed the deal that a serger was now in my near future. A few Google and Pinterest searches, and I learned that a serger is pretty much a knit's best friend and the deal was sealed. A few more Google-ings of "best beginner serger" led me to the Brother 1034D, and 2 days later this guy showed up on my door - thank you Amazon Prime!
So after I got my new friend out of the box and got her threaded (huge thanks to this video) I decided to give this Flashback tee a try. I had purchased this pattern thinking Nora can always use a few new tees and it did not disappoint.
These sewed up like a dream and so incredibly fast thanks to my new serger friend. I just love how finished and professional my seams now look! I have more knits on the way from Girl Charlee and have at least 2 more of these tees I want to stitch up.
I am still getting the hang of how the serger works, I'm very good at edges that I don't need to worry about backstitching, but those finishing seams I'm a little in the dark about, as you can't make a serger go in reverse. If any of you have tips or suggestions, I'd love to hear them!
Nora seemed to give her stamp of approval, as they certainly didn't slow her down from partaking in her favorite activity of taking each and every book off the shelf and then moving on to the next exciting adventure of a 17 month old.
She liked them so much she even wanted to try on the second shirt, as she is incredibly helpful like that. Yes, that's what it was, it certainly wasn't that she wanted to eat the pink washi tape. No that wasn't it at all.
Stay tuned for more adventures with my new serger friend! Pretty please send your favorite tips and tutorials my way, I would absolutely LOVE to hear about them!
