Serge With Confidence: Part 3

Serge With Confidence: Part 3

Amelia Johanson May Book Blog Nancy Zieman Serge with Confidence

May Book Blog: Serge With Confidence by Nancy Zieman

Before dashing off to Quilt Market this week I was able to take a stab at cover stitching our project. First, however, I have to give a shout out to Cathy Krejci at the wonderful new Pins & Needles location in Middleburg Heights, Ohio. Cathy has helped me with serger issues in the past, and when I couldn’t get my machine to stitch properly — a pretty serious issue, given the focus of this blog is to encourage you all to use your sergers — we took a look at the machine together and realized the needle casing was cracked (the needle was jutting forward instead of straight down when fully tightened). Word to the wise, be careful when you tighten your needles. So off my serger went for servicing while Cathy was kind enough to let me borrow hers for this project. We threaded the looper with the pink wooly and she advised me to use regular pink serger thread in the needles. For the cover stitch we’re doing, you only need three threads. I stitched out a test on my organza without the Solvy (wash-away stabilizer) and it tunneled slightly. Cathy advised me to reduce the differential feed to 0.7 from 1.0, and I added the Solvy under my organza.

The results: perfection. Aligning the inner needle with the traced line on my organza jacket, sleeve hem and bonnet curve, I simply stitched from one edge to the other. 

Once I finished stitching, I gently tore away the Solvy; 

the rest will rinse away when the garment is washed.

Tip: To get enough thread to pull out for clipping at the edge of your project, turn your hand wheel away from you until the needles go down and up; then lightly pull and clip the threads so that you have tails not only on your project but enough thread extending from the needles and looper for your next round of stitching.

Tip: If you find you haven’t stitched straight and want to re-stitch (not advised too many times on organza) cover stitching is easy to pull out. Simply clip down the back of your stitching (the wooly looper threads) being careful not to catch your fabric, then tug the needle threads from the edge of your project and the stitching comes right out. Remove the Solvy and press with the tip of the iron to close the needle holes and re-stitch.

Tip: Nancy and other serger experts might cringe at this, but I’m a true believer that necessity is the mother of invention. After stitching my bonnet curve perfectly along the traced line the very first time, I noticed that I had one stitch where the looper thread did not get caught by the left needle — the dreaded skipped stitch. 

Instead of pulling the threads out and starting over, I threaded a hand needle with my pink top thread, secured it with a tiny tight knot on the wrong side at the edge of a secured wooly loop, caught the loose loop on the back side and tacked it to the straight stitch so that was aligned where it should have been caught. Then I stitched up through the next needle hole, over one stitch on the right side and back down into the next needle hole before tying off.

It’s virtually undetectable from the right side and saved me from having to restitch anything.

Next week, we’ll construct our little set. 

-Amelia

Serge With Confidence: Part 2

Serge With Confidence: Part 2

Amelia Johanson book blog tour Nancy Zieman Serge with Confidence serging

May Book Blog: Serge With Confidence by Nancy Zieman

I asked you last week to gather your materials, but two things I failed to mention were KK2000 Temporary Spray Adhesive and Roxanne’s Glue Baste-It. Since we’re working with two fabrics, the spray is handy for adhering the layers together, particularly since organza against batiste is a very slippery proposition. I personally like to lightly spray the surface of the batiste and layer the organza on top before cutting out the pieces, so they will be cut out the exact same size.

Roxanne’s glue is an option to baste stitching hems in place prior to stitching. Also, pre-wash both your fabrics before starting. And I’m thinking when we get to the cover stitching next week, I may try it with some wash-away stabilizer first since organza might need the extra support; so have that on hand. 

Another tip I should have mentioned last week before getting started is to check the availability of wooly nylon threads before you decide on your batiste color. My initial thought was to use blue, but Gutermann’s Bulky Nylon, which is available to me locally, didn’t have a shade of blue that would work. So instead, I’m using cream batiste, white organza and pink thread for the cover stitching.

Preparation:
1. Before we can start with the decorative part of serging our project we have to cut out the jacket pattern, which if you’re using Burda 9645 are pieces 14, 15 and 16. I altered the pattern in two ways. First, I preferred a straight sleeve rather than the slight bell design given in the pattern, so before cutting out, I folded the sleeve pattern straight down from the underarm on both sides.

2. Second, since I didn’t want the cover stitch to be altered in appearance over the shoulder seams, I overlapped the front jacket piece and the back piece on the 5/8-inch seamline, pinned it together and cut it out as one on the fold.

I used the adhesive spray and cut both my batiste and organza layers out together, but you may prefer to cut them separately. Set all the batiste pieces aside for now.

3. The cover stitching will be done on the organza jacket layer. The trickiest part here is making sure the cover stitch will be at the same level across the bottom of both the front jacket and back jacket, so when you join the jacket at the side seams, the shadow stitching lines will match up. Measure up from the bottom of the organza jacket piece 2-1/2 inches. Take a heat or water-soluble marking pen and mark all the way across the bottom on both front and back.

4. Mark 1-1/4 inches in from the neckline all the way around the jacket opening, measuring in from the facing fold when you get to that point. Since you’re working with sheer organza, it is best to place it on top of a dark surface in order to see the edge of the fabric.

Bonnet Preparation:
For the simple bonnet, you’ll need to create a single pattern piece that looks basically like a big gumdrop.

1. Trace off a rectangle 6 inches deep by 15-1/2 inches wide. Draw a line down the center of the rectangle. Measure up 7 inches from the center and make a point. Starting at the right corner of the rectangle, draw a curve up to the center dot. Repeat for the other side.

2. Cut out an organza and a batiste bonnet piece; set the batiste piece aside.

3. To mark the organza bonnet for cover stitch, measure up from the straight lower edge 1-1/2 inches and draw a guideline across. Measure in 1 inch around the curved edge and draw a guideline completely around. 

Next week we will tackle our cover stitching on our organza overlay pieces.

-Amelia