The Urge To Serge

 Hey online sewing community.  Y'all are awesome!  I was so encouraged by all the great information and links you passed along in the comments the other day.   I sat down the next night and sidled on up to Sergio.  He is quite the gentleman, by the way.  Not nearly as scary as I though he'd be. Thank you so much for all the great suggestions and advice.  I watched this awesome video and I have had no trouble threading.  I threaded it the first go no problem.  I'd say the 1034d is super user friendly.  I used a bunch of different partial spools of blue thread (not sure why I had so many) and I ended up re-threading the machine several times as a spool ran out.  I highly recommend doing the same at first because now I'm totally confident in my ability to thread my serger.  It really is not too difficult.

 

Yes, that's snow and no, I'm not cold.  My crazy pregnancy hormones keep me hot and flustered all the time now.  We had about a inch of wet snow yesterday.  The only snow of the season.  

I watched a few other videos as well.  The dvd's that came with the machine wouldn't play on our old Mac laptop.  Someone else complained of the same issue, just fyi.  Then I rummaged around in the stash and came up with this blue ponte knit.  I measured the widest part of my hips, divided in two and cut two rectangles using that measurement.   I didn't add any seam allowance.  I figured the stretch would take care of some of that.  I also wanted the skirt to be snug so I can wear it post baby.  Then I cut two more rectangles for the band.  They were each twenty inches high so I have a ten inch fold over band in case you are interested.  Very slapdash methods, I daresay.  I tested the tension on a few scraps ( I did need to adjust the upper looper) and I was off.  Three seams later, I had a maxi maternity skirt.  This has to be the fastest garment I've ever made.  My only regret is that I didn't give myself some sweep at the hem.  It's a straight up-and-down column.  Which is okay.  But if I make another I'll add some width to the hem to make it more a-line.  In some of these photos I'm wearing it folded up a second time.

     

I attempted to use the blind hem foot on some scraps but it was a disaster.  I'll need some more practice before I master that.  So I just serged the bottom edge of my skirt and left it.  If I'm ever feeling more proper, I'll flip it up once and stitch on my regular machine.  I made another maternity tee next.  I used the same Burda long sleeve tee pattern as before and a rayon knit from the stash.  I did have to up the differential feed for this knit to prevent wavy seams.  Always test on a scrap first!  This time I added a bit of width as well as length for ruching.  I didn't bother matching any plaids.  Hope you're not too horrifed.  Pretty much every seam is either ruched or eased in anyway (all the bands are a tiny bit shorter than the edge they are attached to), so I'm not sure how I could have matched anything anyway.

Not much else to say.  These are definitely not the best executed garments in the world, but they were both perfect for learning to use my new machine.  I wanted to flip the inside out and take another photo, but I was too lazy.  You'll just have to trust that all my seams are nicely serged!  I'm so excited about all the options I have now and all the useful techniques I get to learn.  Again, thanks so much for all the suggestions.  I think I'm definitely going to take that Craftsy class eventually to make sure I take advantage of all the different functions my serger has.

  

This is the bump at 33 weeks.  Let me just say, it is getting harder to post pictures of my giant self these days ;)  I did my best to look cute and pregnant.  But I'll be honest, I feel like a sack of potatoes.  All lumps and bumps and bosoms.  Hehehe.  It's all worth it.  It's hard to believe I'm still going to get bigger.  Craziness!  We can hardly wait for this last seven weeks to pass by.