Serger's are fantastic machines. You can sew AND cut off the extra fabric at the same time?! Not to mention, you get a lovely finished edge. It cuts sewing time in half and can make you look like one heck of a pro even if you are just a beginning sewer...However...They are also horrifyingly complicated when you have a look inside.
YIKES! That's a lot of moving parts...But it is very important to get familiar with all these moving parts and to understand what they do before you ever sew a scrap of fabric.
Often, people sewing on a serger will find themselves asking...
Why is my serger coming un-threaded?
Why is the thread breaking?
Have I broken my serger??
Why doesn't my serger work?! AHHH!!
The solution to 99.9% of these questions: Threading.
Before you run off to a sewing machine repair shop and fork over $100+ dollars because you think you've broken your machine, make sure that the machine has been threaded properly. The first place to look might be inside the machine itself. On this Babylock, the instructions on how to thread it are right inside the door:
If you don't have something like this, I suggest having a look in your user manual. If you don't have a user manual, then search Google using your machine's make and model. Just about every machine's user's manual can be found on the interwebs these days!
HOWEVER, even WITH the user's manual...things can go all sorts of wrong. Every threading tutorial I have ever read, including the one in my manual, seems to leave out some all-powerful step...until now.
Your user's manual can get you at least through half of the steps. Here are the basics from my machine (with the all-powerful tips included), and from what I can tell, these are pretty basic steps for all sergers:
1. Move the upper knife out of your way
It's big. It's sharp. It's in your way. All serger's have a method that allows you to swing the knife up. Mine has a small lever that allows you to gently push it to the right, and a knob that allows you to twist it up. Yay!
2. Thread the UPPER LOOPER
In this picture, the upper looper is outlined in yellow. Thread this looper by following your machine's guides. Be sure to lace the eye at the very tip of the looper from front to back. IMPORTANT: Your thread at this point may be crossing IN FRONT OF the lower looper (shown here in red). Make sure you gently move this thread BEHIND the lower looper!
3. Thread the LOWER LOOPER
Shown in the above picture in red, again follow your machine's guides. Once again, be sure the thread is laced through the eye from front to back. IMPORTANT: You IN NO WAY want the thread of the upper looper and the thread of the lower looper to tangle together. Remember that thread from the upper looper that you may have gently moved behind the lower looper? Do not let the thread from the LOWER LOOPER be ABOVE this thread. You need to be able to hold both strands from the fully threaded loopers out to the left side of the machine...and they should in no way cross, touch or tangle.
4. Thread your Needles LAST! ALWAYS!
It sounds really silly, that something as simple as threading the needles last (always) could be the source of all of your problems...but in reality...it really could be. Even if one of the loopers' thread breaks or runs out, you MUST unthread the needles, and START THE ENTIRE THREADING PROCESS OVER AGAIN FROM THE BEGINNING. This is frustrating. This is time consuming. But it is what you must do.
Follow your machine's guides on how to thread these needles (going front to back through the needle eyes). Once again, these should not cross, touch or tangle with any other thread when held out to the left side of the machine.
5. Hand Crank Your Machine
Hand cranking will allow you to not only see your machine's working parts in action, but it will also give the machine a nice, slow start to its chaining process. Gently hold all four threads out to the left side of the machine with your left hand , and slowly crank the knob with your right hand. Do this until you have at least 2 inches of a chain. If it is chaining correctly...CONGRATULATIONS! You have just successfully threaded your machine! If it isn't chaining.......
A few common checks you can make are...
1. Is the top looper going up and catching on the right needle? If not, try lowering the right needle ever so slightly.
1. Is the top looper going up and catching on the right needle? If not, try lowering the right needle ever so slightly.
2. If the loopers don't seem to be moving as much as they should be, trying oiling your machine!
3. If the threads are breaking or coming up-threaded, ensure you followed the threading instructions PERFECTLY, and also check your thread tention.
6. Lower you Upper Knife, and test your machine with scrap fabric.
Testing your machine is always very important...you never want to ruin your actual project by....oh I dunno... accidentally leaving the upper knife in its up position, and ending up with a huge wad of fabric under the presser foot. (#AdmittingYourOwnFaults)
But that's all folks. I hope I have saved you a little bit of serger drama with this tutorial! I will leave you with one more handy piece of info!
So threading a serger is a pain, right?? RIGHT?? And you probably don't want to re-thread it every time you need a new color thread...RIGHT?? Well here's the trick...
Cut every single thread right above the spools. This will leave a piece of thread in-tact, following all of the guides, knooks and crannies you have worked so hard to lace it through. Go ahead and completely remove the needle threads (remember how you have to do these last? always? Unfortunately, this method also doesn't work for the needles, as a small knot in the thread will not pass through the eyes of the needles). Switch out your spools, and tie the ends of the new spools to the tails of the cut threads running through the machine to the lower and upper loopers. Make sure it is securely tied and pull the ends of the threads, effectively pulling the new thread all the way through the machine without the hassle of doing it all again by hand. The only thing left to do is lace the new thread through the guides for the needles, and hand-crank to make sure you did it all correctly!
HAPPY SERGING!!
artful.Anthropology
