Serge With Confidence: Part 5

Serge With Confidence: Part 5

Amelia Johanson May Book Blog Nancy Zieman Serge with Confidence serging

May Book Blog: Serge With Confidence by Nancy Zieman

Our last and final blog on our little serged baby set is a relatively easy lesson, since you have already cut out and serger shadow stitched your bonnet piece using the cover stitch. If you haven’t already cut out a batiste lining piece, do so now using your embellished organza top layer. Secure the layers together, wrong side of organza to right side of batiste, using pins or KK 2000. Serge with an overlock across the bottom and then around the curved edge.

Turn up the bottom hem to the wrong side so that the serged edge just overlaps the lower edge of the shadow stitching(you should be able to see it through the fabric).

Press and take to the sewing machine. Topstitch on the right side just beside the  shadow stitch line in thread color that matches your project. The stitching will catch the hem on the wrong side.

Now since your bonnet piece is curved all the way around, you will need to ease in the hem. Run two gathering threads at least 4.5 inches long 5/8 inch and 1/4 inch from the curved edge.

Pull the threads around the curve gathering slightly so you can fold the edge under to slightly overlap the shadow stitching line.

Press. Straight stitch from the front around the outer edge, just as you did across the hem edge. This will create your casing. (You will have some gathering on the wrong side of the fabric, but since the bonnet is drawn up with a ribbon, this is fine.)

Run a ribbon through the casing using a safety pin.

Pull up the bonnet to fit. To secure the bonnet shape, stitch through all layers (including ribbon) at the edge of  shadow stitching beyond the casing opening.

Tie knots in the end of each ribbon.

Gift a new baby girl with this sweet little serger set.

-Amelia

Serge With Confidence: Part 4

Serge With Confidence: Part 4

Amelia Johanson May Book Blog Nancy Zieman Serge with Confidence serging

May Book Blog: Serge With Confidence by Nancy Zieman

Now that our decorative work is done on all our organza pieces, it’s time to construct our little jacket. For the most part, I followed the construction process given in the pattern, with these exceptions:

First, place each organza piece to each batiste piece, wrong side of organza to right side of batiste, and baste around the edges to join.

Treat as one from this point on.

Change your serger setup to a three- or four-thread overlock stitch and finish the jacket edges along the front facings. Fold the facings to the right side of the garment along the foldline and stitch across the facings 3/4 inch from the top just to the end of the serged finish and 1-1/2 inches from the bottom across the facing. 

Mark all the way around your neckline edge 1 inch from the shadow-stitching line.

Serger finish around the neck on the marked line (with the facings still turned back).

Stitch up your side seams making sure to align the shadow stitching.

Finish with the serged edge. (You could serge only, but you run the risk of misaligning the shadow stitching). 

Serge all the way around the bottom edge of the jacket (facings are still turned back.)

For many serged baby items, you could serger finish the neckline and simply fold back the narrow edge and topstitch to finish. For this design, however, I needed the turned-back edge to meet the shadow stitching, and to fold back a wider finish along a curve requires you to clip the curves into the finished, serged edge. You could do this, however it leaves raw fabric along the clips and isn’t a very attractive finish.

Instead I suggest finishing with a bias strip from the batiste. Cut the strip 1-3/4 inches wide. Fold it in half and press in a circle shape echoing the shape of the your neckline. With the raw edges of the bias aligned with the raw edges of the jacket and working on the right side of the jacket, sew around the neckline with a 1/4-inch seam. Trim the ends of the bias so they overlap the turned-back facing approximately 1 inch. Clip the curves, turn the bias binding to the wrong side, turn the facings to the inside of the jacket (this will also flip the bottom hem up as well) and press around the neck, the hem and down the facings. The bottom hem should meet or be positioned slightly beyond the bottom shadow stitching.

To secure you could hand blind stitch, but it is just as clean and easier to topstitch so that your topstitching lies right beside the shadow stitching line. Use thread to match the garment fabric on the shadow stitching (in this case a fine cream thread). The stitching is barely detectable and you catch the hem on the underside.

The neck bias aligns just beyond the edge of the shadow stitching as well, and you will secure it in the same manner.

Serger finish your sleeve edges, turn up the hem to the shadow-stitching line, press and topstitch as for the jacket. Stitch the sleeve seams aligning the shadow stitching and finish the seam allowance with a serger.

Gather the sleeve cap and set into the garment, finishing with a serged edge. This is a small area to work in, so stitch slowly and carefully.

Add a ribbon closure as instructed in the pattern.

Apply a clear snap on the underlap to secure.

Next week, we will tackle our little drafted bonnet to complete the set.

And on a side note, I actually chatted with Nancy Zieman at Quilt Market in Portland; she was signing copies of her Sew Knits with Confidence book at the F+W booth. And she assured me that my suggesting you catch a skipped stitch with a needle and thread was perfectly acceptable. So we can all relax and forgive our little sewing flaws. 

-Amelia

Serge With Confidence: Part 3

Serge With Confidence: Part 3

Amelia Johanson May Book Blog Nancy Zieman Serge with Confidence

May Book Blog: Serge With Confidence by Nancy Zieman

Before dashing off to Quilt Market this week I was able to take a stab at cover stitching our project. First, however, I have to give a shout out to Cathy Krejci at the wonderful new Pins & Needles location in Middleburg Heights, Ohio. Cathy has helped me with serger issues in the past, and when I couldn’t get my machine to stitch properly — a pretty serious issue, given the focus of this blog is to encourage you all to use your sergers — we took a look at the machine together and realized the needle casing was cracked (the needle was jutting forward instead of straight down when fully tightened). Word to the wise, be careful when you tighten your needles. So off my serger went for servicing while Cathy was kind enough to let me borrow hers for this project. We threaded the looper with the pink wooly and she advised me to use regular pink serger thread in the needles. For the cover stitch we’re doing, you only need three threads. I stitched out a test on my organza without the Solvy (wash-away stabilizer) and it tunneled slightly. Cathy advised me to reduce the differential feed to 0.7 from 1.0, and I added the Solvy under my organza.

The results: perfection. Aligning the inner needle with the traced line on my organza jacket, sleeve hem and bonnet curve, I simply stitched from one edge to the other. 

Once I finished stitching, I gently tore away the Solvy; 

the rest will rinse away when the garment is washed.

Tip: To get enough thread to pull out for clipping at the edge of your project, turn your hand wheel away from you until the needles go down and up; then lightly pull and clip the threads so that you have tails not only on your project but enough thread extending from the needles and looper for your next round of stitching.

Tip: If you find you haven’t stitched straight and want to re-stitch (not advised too many times on organza) cover stitching is easy to pull out. Simply clip down the back of your stitching (the wooly looper threads) being careful not to catch your fabric, then tug the needle threads from the edge of your project and the stitching comes right out. Remove the Solvy and press with the tip of the iron to close the needle holes and re-stitch.

Tip: Nancy and other serger experts might cringe at this, but I’m a true believer that necessity is the mother of invention. After stitching my bonnet curve perfectly along the traced line the very first time, I noticed that I had one stitch where the looper thread did not get caught by the left needle — the dreaded skipped stitch. 

Instead of pulling the threads out and starting over, I threaded a hand needle with my pink top thread, secured it with a tiny tight knot on the wrong side at the edge of a secured wooly loop, caught the loose loop on the back side and tacked it to the straight stitch so that was aligned where it should have been caught. Then I stitched up through the next needle hole, over one stitch on the right side and back down into the next needle hole before tying off.

It’s virtually undetectable from the right side and saved me from having to restitch anything.

Next week, we’ll construct our little set. 

-Amelia