Thread: Tell me about your serger

I have a Kenmore sewing machine that I like but for costuming/working with specialty fabrics - especially chiffon and making rolled hems - I'm considering a serger. I know next to nothing about them. I'm not looking for the most expensive one out there, just a good solid model that'll get the job done without much headache involved. What features are nice to have and what do I really need?

Walmart has a 4 thread Brother for $200, is that reasonable?

You should look at the Kenmore Serger, which is about $200 I think. They only have one at sears. That's the one I would get. I've heard that Brother's aren't a good value.

Disclaimer: I don't own a serger, but I want to.

I couldn't speak to prices or brand recommendations (I have a Singer that's probably about 10 yrs old which I am pretty happy with) but you will definitely need to be able to set differential feed for a lot of costuming fabrics.

Anything with any stretch or anything you might want to gather becomes worlds easier to deal with.

I owned one..it was the spawn of Satan and I gave it away!

Actually, $200 sounds a bit low. Generally speaking, the more you spend, the more options you will have and the better the durability of the machine. Four-thread sergers are more flexible than three-thread ones. (You can usually do three-thread stitches on a four-thread machine, but not the other way around.)

For me, a critical feature is the ability to be able to sew free arm (part of the sewing deck comes off so you can sew narrow things like sleeve cuffs more easily), and a lot of the lower-end machines didn't seem to have this feature when I was looking two years ago. If you're making all of your garments from scratch, you can serge your hems before sewing the tubes/sleeves up, but if you need to alter pre- or partially-sewn garments, it's really nice to be able to do things like shorten sleeves without having to worry about accidentally opening a gash in the fabric with the cutting blade. (Sergers have less work room for your fingers around the presser foot than a conventional machine has, which makes it more difficult to manipulate around curves if you have to keep jockeying the extra fabric out of the way.)

I have a shell hemmer foot for my regular machine that is a DELIGHT to use (BEAUTIFULLY and professionally hemmed an entire 3 panel skirt last night in mere minutes).

As for how do I feel about my serger. . . lets see, 10 minutes to thread (because I want my thread to match), then 10 minutes to figure out why its not working right. Then 10 more to test it again, and then DANG, it stuck or something and 10 minutes to undo, and 10 to rethread. . . (note, this goes on for hours till I get miffed enough to set it away again until I forget that I really hate the evil beast).

So all that heck vs the right foot on my regular sewing machine. . . I'll take the latter any day.

I will say that a number of times I have looked at this one though, it self threads with air jets:

Baby Lock: Imagine Wave

IF I ever get another one, that will be it.

I have a Singer serger I got at JoAnns for $200 on sale. I am happy with it. Threading is a royal pain in the neck, and multiple rounds of troubleshooting have driven me into insanity, too. But, when it runs, there are tasks where I am wondering how I could have possibly lived without such a wonderful piece of equipment.

I have a Bernina that was a bit over $500 - it is a love/hate relationship. When it is running smoothly - just incredible! When it gets finicky and hard to adjust I stop sewing for months at a time and then decide to bring it in for a cleaning and tune-up. They are definately more complicated than a regular machine but when things go smoothly there is nothing I would rather sew on.

My White is about 15 years old and cost about $2000 at the time. I would think they same machine would be closer to $1000 today, butI don't know.

I was talking to the Husquvarna lady at Joann's about my Kenmore (about $300 in 1991) when I brought it in for a repair. I could fix the Kenmore for the same price as a low end Singer (I think) they had on sale. She told me that sewing machines aren't made as they once were and that a good machine will cost more than $100 or $200. With the speed and extra mechanics of a serger, I would think that $200 would be SUPER low.

Serger's are major pains when they don't work right, I would think that a low end model would be even worse.

I apologize if I sound like a serger snob, but I think,like dancers, you get what you pay for.

Maybe go to a service shop and see if they have any second hand machines?

Definitely keep a couple of those sets of "serger tweezers" around, and the faster you learn to re-thread it from memory the happier you will be.

The biggest thing I learned: if you break a thread you must re-thread the WHOLE THING.

Must.

Whole thing.

No exceptions.

I got an Elna 654 for my Birthday last year. I think it cost around $700 - $800. I'm really in love with it. It makes alot of things so much easier once it's set up correctly.

If you aren't familiar with serger's, I would highly recommend taking a class. The shop where my Fiance bought my machine offers classes for free when you buy something from them. Using a serger is much more difficult than a regular machine, but it's worth the effort to learn.

I've got a White that's about 12-15 years old. At the time it cost about $1,000 or so. I loved it, loved it, loved it until about a year ago. Now, not so much. It's been in for service a few times but it's turned very tempermental. Maybe time for a new one....

Originally Posted by anala

I owned one..it was the spawn of Satan and I gave it away!

Amen, sister. I have a serger that I hate with the intensity of a thousand suns.

I have a Kenmore serger and it's good as long as I'm doing the basic seams, etc. It's the more complicated stitches that it hates. We have a couple of sewing shops in town that offers classes on how to use your machine and they are pretty beneficial.
As far as threading, I cut the current thread color off the cone, tie it to the new one and put them on the machine, change my tension to 0 on all 4 dials and run it on a scrap and then change my tension back after all the old thread color is gone. Super easy!

Mine is a Pfaff/Calanda 776 from the early 1990s that I paid $125 for on Craigslist. Another $75 to get it tuned up and it runs like a champ. So that's $200 for a 15+ year old machine. Good deal? Good idea? I dunno. Its a 4 thread with differential feed. Its a bit of a challenge to thread - but really not too bad once you get used to it. The threading diagram is built right onto the machine, like most seemingly are, the main problem I have is forgetting to raise the spool thread guides when I'm first setting it up.

It makes working with the thin, diaphanous fabrics we all love much easier - and I'm MOST definitely a beginning level sewer.

YMMV...

Originally Posted by JDnRIA

As far as threading, I cut the current thread color off the cone, tie it to the new one and put them on the machine, change my tension to 0 on all 4 dials and run it on a scrap and then change my tension back after all the old thread color is gone. Super easy!

A dance sister/instructor taught me this also - minus the tension dial down (good idea!). It works well.

Pretty much the same story for me and my White 1500. However, recently it just stopped working, so we're troubleshooting the cause. I've recently signed up on a Yahoo group for owners of White sergers.

I went with a really inexpensive model (was $150 on sale before Christmas a few years ago) to see if I would actually like having a serger. I would LOVE to buy a top of the line or at least a mid-range model now. Chiffon skirt and veil hems alone made me fall in love with serging.

Long tweezers for threading - an absolute must! (At least until I can get one of those self-threading ones.)

Originally Posted by steffib

I have a Singer serger I got at JoAnns for $200 on sale. I am happy with it. Threading is a royal pain in the neck, and multiple rounds of troubleshooting have driven me into insanity, too. But, when it runs, there are tasks where I am wondering how I could have possibly lived without such a wonderful piece of equipment.

I have had a Husqvarna 4 thread serger for about 9 years and it is still going strong. Granted, I don't use it everyday, but I also haven't ever taken it in for maintenance (I will get around to it someday soon :).

Some of the things you might look for: check the number of threads the machine uses and check the machine to make sure it can make the styles of stiches you are looking to use on your projects. I think mine cost around 700 on sale. Other than that, I would look around online at some of the sewing blogs and see what some of the sewing fashionistas recommend.

Originally Posted by kiyaana

Chiffon skirt and veil hems alone made me fall in love with serging.

Oh yea!