Introduction to the Serger Sewing Machine

Series Summary

Sewing is an ancient craft that still has remarkable relevance in today's modern world. The art of stitching and assembling pieces of fabric together either by hand or with the use of a modern sewing machine is still a valuable skill and can be used for industry and home or arts means. Industrial sewing is usually done with the use of machines, but for seamstresses, alteration givers and most casual sewers, an old fashioned needle and thread is still incredibly useful and more often than not the desired use since it enables far more details. Tailoring and dressmaking require not only a needle and thread, but also other tools and materials that you can find easily at arts and crafts stores.

In this informative video clip series, our expert tailor will show you how to use a serger method for sewing. The serger method involves trimming the edge of fabric and overcasting all in one step. Serging can also be used for creative and decorative effects. Serging is ideal for stretchy fabrics or fabrics that should have neat edges. Learn about the serger machine, its controls, how to thread a serger sewing machine and much more. Included are tips for threading upper and lower loopers, and many examples of serger materials.

Video Transcript

"On behalf of expertvillage.com my name is Neal Jones and I’m with A Perfect Fit Alterations in old town Burleson, our phone number is 817-447-3522 and today we’re here to look at a household over lock sewing machine commonly referred to as a serger. The serger is somewhat complicated in as much that a regular basic, it does a lot more thing than a regular basic sewing machine although it’s specific to a particular type of sewing in a particular stitch. We’re going to start at the front of the machine with the different types of thread holding devices, here we have a mass that holds the thread, one of the most important things on this machine is the fact that the threads do not become tangled because this machine runs at a fairly high speed when you really start to sew with it and the thread will follow a path and they have to go through various things to make sure that they don’t tangle. As we come down the front of the machine we have non tangled devices with little springs in there across the top to feed the different color threads down through. On top of the machine we have an adjustment for our pressure foot and then further down we’ve got four different thread tension adjusters, now the thread tension adjusters are color coded in order to aid us with threading the machine. The machine has pads for the thread to follow and they are color keyed as you can see here, we have two thread guides that service the needle side and we have two thread guides that service the looper side and this particular machine is a four thread serger and it will sew with four threads, it’ll sew with three threads and it’ll sew with two threads."