Beech Tree News Network

Back in the fall, I bought a serger at an auction.  For those of you who don’t know, a serger is a small sewing machine that finishes the raw edges of material in order to keep them from unraveling.  They are expensive if new, so I was quite pleased with myself for getting this one at a bargain price.

My serger was missing a cord, so I took it to the Sewing Center in Bowling Green, where they found one to match.  I also bought some tall spools of thread that fit the machine, as well as a package of new needles—best to be prepared.

I’ve used a regular sewing machine my whole life, so I wasn’t much worried about learning how to use a serger.  Luckily this one came with a manual, and knowing that my brother had constructed an entire electric sawmill with just a manual for a guide, I figured I could figure out how to operate a serger with one.  

I read the page identifying the parts, I looked at the diagrams—pretty straight forward—and I was feeling pretty confident in myself until I got to the pages on how to thread the machine, and yes, I did say pages.  There were sixteen of them.  And you know what?  They needed all sixteen pages, probably a couple more wouldn’t have hurt.

A regular sewing machine is set up with one needle, one spool of thread and one bobbin.  A serger has two needles and four spools of thread.  There is an upper looper thread, a lower looper thread, a right needle thread, and a left needle thread.  Threading the upper looper takes eight steps, the lower looper takes nine.  Threading the right needle takes eight steps, whereas threading the left needle only takes seven—thank God for small favors.  

The instructions include little tips like: Use tweezers to aid in threading the looper.  I struggle with tweezers when I’m plucking my eyebrows, and they were designed to do that.  None-the-less, I plowed ahead with the tweezer instructions to “grasp the thread with the tweezers from thread guide 7, place the thread with the point of the tweezers slightly under and to the left of threading guide 8, pull the thread up and into thread guide 8, pass the thread behind and over the top end of left looper 9-A, then pull it downward gently so that it will slip into the slot in the looper 9-B.  Who designed this thing—Stephen Hawking?  

It’s one of those situations that make me wish Aunt Della lived next door or that I had a support hot line I could call with a knowledgeable support tech at the other end of the line who could walk me through the whole threading process.  I would gladly listen to the same piano etude thirteen times while waiting for the next available support agent to assist me.

While I had my serger at the Sewing Center, I made arrangements to have the machine cleaned and oiled.  It was a bit pricey to do so, but God forbid the thing breaking down on me.  If I can’t thread it, I’m pretty sure I can’t work on it.

You know what?  Maybe, I’ll just let the edges of my seams go ahead and ravel out a bit. I’ve sewn that way for over forty years, and no one has been any the wiser.   And next time, I’m going with the electric sawmill.