The New Toy!

My new serger came on a Thursday, Valentine's Day--I was hopeful that it would be a harbinger of much love to come! And so far, I love it. I bought it online from Walmart. The make is a Brother 1034D and it has lay-in threading. I made my decision to buy it after reading a convincing review on PR. After it arrived, I set it up, looked it over a good bit, read the manual, and watched the two CDs the first week.

Then 2 weekends after it came, I actually used it a bit. I practiced on some cotton, a medium knit, and a heavy fleece knit for the 4-thread overlock stitch. Loved it. Then I changed the threads. I snipped the pre-threaded spools and tied the threads to my new ones. Then I pulled the threads through. I learned sufficiently how to thread the machine that next time I will just cut, remove, and thread from scratch. It seems pretty easy, so far.

I wanted to try it on a real piece. I started sewing a raspberry-black heather sweater knit in Burda 8028, view D length with collar of view A. I've done the shoulders so far and am delighted with the look of the seams. Here is a test view. It uses a 4-thread stitch. The stitching on top is using the pre-threaded spools that came on the machine. The stitching to the right side shows the thread I used to actually make the sweater.

I am now using it on the fabric that I got at SewZanne's as part of my contest winnings for the UFO contest. I bought a lot of fabric to make younger DS clothes for the summer mostly. As they're all pretty much knits, the serger is really coming in handy!