Next, we're going to take our serger from a four-thread to a narrow three-thread.
When we say narrow, that means we're going to use the right needle.
When we say wide, we're going to use the left needle and take out the right one.
Today I'm going to just clip the yellow thread, clip, and pull it out.
Now when I am not using a thread, completely take it off the serger.
If you leave this thread hanging and dangling from its little thread stand up here, it will
find its friend and go back in and come back to haunt you later.
I always leave just the threads I'm using on the serger.
Open up your front door, that’s where that small little screw driver is going to be hidden.
We're loosening the screw at the top.
If you haven't done needle changes, we have the video of how to change your needle.
Loosen the left needle screw, catch that needle on the way out, and when you’re done tighten
that screw.
It’s going to go a lot further back in than what we loosened it for.
Give it a nice tighten, because if you leave this loose the vibration of the serger, sometimes
makes those screws actually find themselves all the way out and lost, and that’s not
good.
Find yourself a little place and hide your needle, and we are ready to do a three-thread
edge.
A three thread edge is great when you just need to go around all your edges and take
care of the unraveling edges.
I'm going to do this quick serge and we'll see how my cutting blade is set up here.
I have a little bit extra, so I'm going to go ahead ... See the little gap in between,
which we will because now we just have a single layer filling that in.
It doesn't usually fill in a lot, so I'm going to go ahead and move my knife a little bit
further to the outside.
We'll just go ahead and do the other side.
If you don't want to cut anything off you can just run the fabric right next to the
blade.
You can move your seam guide, by the way if you want this out you can just go ahead and
slide it out, but it’s kind of nice because you can set this up.
Slide that back in so that it’s even with your knife, and then not be trimming off very
much.
If you do trim off just a little bit, it is going to give it a nice little edge.
Ooh, that’s pretty.
See the difference, now it’s filled in where before it had a little bit extra there.
You can go all the way around the edge.
I would also probably lengthen the stitch line because we don't really need it this
tight, so we can make that a little bit longer, and spread it out.
Here is a great example.
I've got a coat that I actually had ... See it’s a beautiful silk.
I just had it quilted, silk on the top, silk on the bottom, with batting in between.
Then what I did was I cut my jacket out of the silk quilt that was quilted.
This is a fitted jacket, so what I did was of all the pieces that I cut out, all the
little sides, the fronts, the little parts underneath my arm, I went ahead and just went
around them all with a three-thread edge.
Then that way as I handled them, I didn't have to worry about all those silk strings.
If you’re doing any garment construction, velvets are another thing, satins are another
thing.
You usually don't want to trim off the seam allowances because those are probably going
to be on things that are more of a fitted item, or maybe just fun.
It is nice to be able to serge around them with the three-thread, and then come back
to your sewing machine and sew the seam.
That way if you need to alter it in or out, you still have the full seam allowance that
was allowed with your pattern.
That is really going to be the best choice.
Yes, your taking two times, but look at how pretty and professional the insides are.
Also that does allow you to press these seams open and not just to one side, or the other
because they haven't actually been closed up.
I have had people just take ... They'll sew everything together, then they'll come back
with a little three-thread and just serge all the seams together.
Whichever way works best for you.
I prefer to do it more on the individual pieces, and then go back and sew them together.
We will have a video on how to do coves both inside and outside curves and corners, so
you know how to work around something that’s not just a straight edge.