Sewing With Nancy

A serger is a machine that creates the finished seams you see on ready-made garments such as sweatshirts and t-shirts. They're all serger made. But using this machine only to serge knits is like using a microwave to heat water. My guest today must have a magic wand hidden in her back pocket since she can transform ordinary serging into magic! Welcome Pam Mahshie, serger magician! Well, thank you Nancy I've never been called a magician before! Today we're going to certainly show others how they can become a magician, too. Let's begin with the cover stitch. Generally used to hem ready-made garments this stitch can transform any work into mystifying shadow work accents. "Magical Serger Techniques" that's what's coming up next on Sewing with Nancy! Sewing with Nancy TV's longest-airing sewing and quilting program with Nancy Zieman is made possible by Baby Lock a complete line of sewing, quilting and embroidery machines and sergers. Baby Lock, for the love of sewing. Madeira, specializing in embroidery, quilting and special effect threads because creativity is never black and white. Koala Sewing Cabinets hand built in the USA by American craftsmen customized for you. Clover makers of sewing, knitting, quilting and embroidery products for over 25 years. Experience the Clover difference. Amazing Designs and Klass needles. Before learning the tricks of the trade of working with a serger it's important to have a review of the basic stitches. If you were with us during the first program of the series Pam and I worked with the overlock, flatlock and rolled edge stitches traditional serger stitches on the edge of the fabric. Correct. Now we're going to change to a cover stitch. On ready-mades, you'll see this cover stitch on hems. This is the perfect hem because on the right side it's visible as two stitches. It looks like a double needle stitching. On the flip side, there is one looper. It's called the cover looper, and it covers the raw edge. I would fold the fabric and stitch from the right side. Here's a close-up of serging along the edge. I'm using a fabric guide to guide the width of the hem so that I will cover the underneath side. You can't see the underneath side on all fabrics so it is important to sew a test. When you're done, that raw edge should be hidden underneath that area. The set-up of a cover stitch is unique. It has a special plate that Pam can show you. It has a special looper. And you can use two needles in various positions. Correct, and now you might want to check on your serger because not all sergers are capable of doing a chain and cover stitch. Make sure that your machine is capable of doing that. We are going to be sewing with a flatbed sewing plate. We do have the flatbed sewing plate in position. We also have the two needles positioned in the chain needle position and cover stitch position moving them to the front position for stitching. We are using the chain looper. Again, that's going to be found in the bottom part of our machine where we found those other loopers for overlock stitching. So, one looper. Follow your owner's manual. I always have to check, but Pam knows it by memory. I do check my owner's manual for each setting. When I did the stitching I used all-purpose thread in the needles and also in the chain looper. I had different colors just to show you the example. But on hemming, I'd use all the same colors. "Mystifying shadow work." Now, mystifying shadow work-- What we've done is we want to have that chain looper thread shadowing or showing through to the front side. So we placed a heavier thread in our chain looper. Let me just show that. We've used a texturized nylon thread in a dark color. You can see the navy blue shade and how it shadows through the batiste. Let me get it shadowed through correctly. There you go. Just a hint of shadow work. That shows through. And then, you could use your regular sewing thread in your two needles. Instead of sewing on the edge of our fabric we're going to be stitching in the middle of our fabric. So then simply draw lines or position your fabric into the machine flat, and stitch. That's all there is to it! We're not hemming. We're making decorative effects. We're just making a decorative effect at this point whether you're using it for decorative effects on home dec projects or if you're going to be using it for hemming. Here again you can see that there is that darker color that is shadowing through your fabrics. If you wanted to make parallel lines which we've used frequently in our first program of the series just use the presser foot width. Exactly, as your guide. You can align the presser foot. Right along the outside edge. There isn't any reason for having to draw the lines if you use your presser foot as the outside edge as a guide. And depending upon where your needles are positioned it will also give you a different width or spacing between each of those stitches. Now you can see that you can hem or create this mystifying shadow work all with the basic cover stitch. I hope you enjoyed that. Smocking and little dresses go hand-in-hand. The time-honored art of hand stitching a gridded pattern that simultaneously creates gathers and a design was an art form long before sewing machines came on the scene. Introduce the serger to the smocking world and presto, a sleight of hand transformation. No more hand stitching. Gathering by a serger and decorative stitches by machine provide a magical approach to this heirloom accent. I have to admit, when I saw this project that Pam made it really piqued my interest because I am soon-to-be a grandmother of a little girl. And this will be a great little project to make. Here you can see the charming smocking. It looks like it's handwork. Nothing of the sort, Pam. Not at all. And congratulations, by the way! Well, thank you. So, to make the smocking, what we are going to do is use this cover stitch with some changes. Not to the thread, exactly, but to the differential feed. Kind of a funny term, but it references the feed dogs on the machine. I've removed the foot from my machine to show you the traditional feed dogs biting. You know, these are dogs. This is just to show you what the changes are. You will be sewing with your presser foot on. Yes, exactly. I tightened the feed dogs. Watch how much more the feed dogs "bite." They really come up and move at a faster rate. So, put your foot back on which Pam has done. She's going to show you how it changes the fabric. Correct. Now here we have it set. The differential feed is set at the normal setting. As we stitch, it's going to give us a chain stitch a cover stitch that is completely flat. Nothing different than what we are used to serging here. Then what I am going to do is raise this differential feed and also lengthen my stitch. It's important to be able to lengthen the stitch and increase the differential feed which gives us that full-featured differential technique. Now, as I stitch, watch what happens. My fabric is going 'to be pulled up. It gives me the gathering that I want. We went from an "N" setting of the differential feed or the normal setting however your serger may be set to the highest level, which is number "2" on the machines that we are working on. After you have stitched that first row that's the row that's easy. Yes, so we're just going to stitch the first row. I have several rows already stitched because I wanted you to see just exactly how as Nancy said, the first row is the easy row. The next rows are going to be-- how you guide them in is very important. Again, we're going to be using the outside edge of our presser foot as a guide. And depending upon where we have our needles positioned will give us that different width or determine the width between our stitches. As we stitch, our differential feed is increased to "2" our stitch length is at number "4". As I stitch, my right hand is going to walk my fabric into the machine and keep the edge of the fabric even with my left hand and I continue to stitch. As you can see, it creates those beautiful little tucks and gathers that are on my fabric. I continue to stitch, row after row creating a piece of fabric that then is going to be large enough for the yoke or the sleeves that I am going to be inserting this into. If you should by chance stitch down one little tuck it's okay. It is okay. Yes, absolutely. Here's a sample that has the initial smocking. You would now do the stitching at the machine. Here you can see I'm following along one of the cover stitch lines using a decorative stitch. Rayon thread is in the needle. Do a little test sample on a specific fabric so you can decide which decorative stitch to use but an open stitch is really appropriate. After you have done several crosswise rows on the garment you can see the finished result. Here we have, again, two open stitches alternating and it is sweet. Very sweet. So a combination of modern technology with heirloom effect. It's charming, so we have the sleight of hand smocking. It's a great technique to try on your serger and sewing machine. A serger magic show wouldn't be complete without pintucks. Okay, there's never been a serging magic show before! Yet, if such a show should be organized these pintucks would be a star feature. We call them "incredible pintucks" since you will not believe how simple they are to create. With one row of serger stitching the tuck magically appears with perfect precision. We have a beautiful christening gown with the tucks along the side, which you show. They're pressed in one direction on either side. Again, we're using the cover stitch. The stitching is much smaller than the two preceding techniques. Pam, you've made some changes to your machine. Yes, we have, Nancy. What we have done is we have moved the needle from the far left position to the center position. We've also attached the pintuck presser foot with the guide. You may find this with your serger or it may be an accessory foot to purchase. The pintuck foot has an area on the underside allowing the fabric to be forced in that section and the guide does that for you. You'll see that on Pam's machine in just a minute but it's a raised bar so the fabric is then forced in that underside and you are stitching over the raised bar. The pintucks then form from that but there's one more adjustment you will need on your machine. Yes, we've increased the chain looper tension. This will draw the fabric together on the underside creating that beautiful tuck. I'll show you what happens on that underside look. We purposely used blue thread. You can see that in the past it was lying flat and now, because Pam tightened the tension it just brought those threads together. So the combination of the pintuck foot the guide, and tightening the tension this is what you get, but now to sew it. And on that garment that we made we simply take a piece of fabric twice the length of the finished fabric. And then as we stitch these, we cut them in half. So we're simply going to stitch one pintuck. Use the outside edge of our presser foot as the guide. That outside edge of our presser foot becomes a great measuring tool with many of these techniques without having to re-measure each and every time that you're going to be stitching. Now you stitch all the lines for your pintucks press them in one direction and you end up with those magical pintucks. Cut it in half, as you said so that you are sewing long sections. Long rows of fabric, yes. There is one more little miraculous change we could make. With most pintuck feet, you'll also get a second guide which Pam is going to snap on her machine. While we watch you do that, here is the guide. Pam, why don't you show everyone? We've already placed the yarn in the opening of the guide. We're simply going to open the side door slide off the pintuck guide, and attach our cord guide to the front of the machine. Close the door. It holds it in place. Then as we stitch over this yarn we place the yarn under our fabric, and stitch. The machine is going to guide that yarn right between those two needles. It's just like magic! We are using batiste fabric. Of course, you'd have to have some shadow through to have these raised pintucks if you would like the color to show through. Or you could just make them raised by putting matching yarn underneath. So whether you would like the pressed pintucks or the raised pintucks by placing yarn underneath the serger makes an ideal machine for accurate and neat sewing. Gone are the days of only correlating serging techniques with knit fabrics. Bridal illusion is the star of this magical serger technique. You might think that serging on lightweight illusion or tulle fabric is an impossible task! Disappearing fabric is what makes this elegant technique a reality. Here's are some insights into this serger trick. The bag that you just saw was created with two layers of fabric bridal illusion or tulle, with the serger stitching and then fabric underneath. The stitching that you see is the chain stitch. The chain stitch-- In general, serging ideas is used as a topstitching idea. Here, you can see it as a top stitch, or as a seam. Rarely, do I think of a serger as seaming woven fabrics but it does work well with one stitch. I'll just show you right here that I can just sew a seam. It's a very stable stitch, as well so when you're stitching on knit or woven fabrics they're not going to stretch. By creating that single line of stitching the serger straight stitch you could even press that seam open, if you wanted to. I'll just kind of finger press it for you. The set-up is different. Why don't you go over the set-up for our viewers. Okay, very good. We've gone from two needles one on the left and one on the far right to the pintucks when we did the needles, one right next to the other. Now, we're just using a single needle in the machine and creating a chain stitch. The chain stitch and the chain looper are what we use in order to create that single line of stitching. You take out one of the needles from the cover stitch and you have to adjust the tension a little bit to the chain stitch. Again, that owner's manual comes in handy. Then you can do the stitching. The decorative stitch is the chain looper thread. So when I stitched this little sample you can see the navy blue. I was stitching from the topside so the decorative effect comes undercover. Again, it's pretty magical because you are placing the wrong side of your fabric up. And as you stitch, you turn it over and magically, the decorative stitch appears. The technique that we have for you the sheer illusion is to serge right on the bridal veiling. You can see it's lightweight fabric. And I have it on my tabletop. It is almost difficult to see. The disappearing fabric that I referenced is water-soluble mesh, generally used for embroidery. This disappears in water. It's made out of cornstarch so it's an eco-friendly disappearing fabric. And you make a sandwich the water-soluble mesh being your bread. You're not going to have too much protein here with that bridal veiling, but that's what you have. To hold it all together-- I'm just going to place this down on the table. You can use a little glue stick to hold the layers together or perhaps, you could use a spray. A spray adhesive works very well. Then you can grid however close together you would like to create this. Pam, you have 30-weight thread in your looper and your needle. Correct, in both the needle and the looper we have the 30-weight thread. It will make our stitch stand up just a little bit more. We do have the fabric gridded as you mentioned. You can also just use the markings that are on your presser foot as a guide. Follow that in under the presser foot. We continue to stitch one row right after another. I generally go from one side of the fabric to the other. Notice Pam doesn't raise her presser foot between stitching. No, and that's really important because sometimes when you raise it you forget to put it down. Your stitches are not going to be equal when you forget to put your presser foot down. We continue to stitch row after row on top of this water-soluble mesh. Nancy, you have the finished sample there. I do. You can see the light green stitching on top of the mesh. Well, we saved this technique for last on our magic show because we have disappearing fabric a basin of water, and our sample. Place it in the water-- Hocus-pocus, Alakazam-- Think of any magic word that we want to say. We'll just let it soak a little bit. It does work very well when you run it under water. When it's real warm water it's going to dissolve a little bit faster. So we will let that dissolve. And presto! Here you see the fabric. Layer it and then you have sheer illusion! A few weeks ago you met Peggy Nied our Heart to Heart participant. You may recall that Peggy is a fellow sewer and like me, she has made it her goal to live a heart-healthy lifestyle. I hope that you have joined us in this quest to not only improve your sewing and quilting techniques but also your quality of life. Peggy is a full-time occupational therapist a single mom, and caregiver for her son. With elevated cholesterol and triglyceride levels she began incorporating healthy eating and more exercise into her already busy day. Let's see how far she's come since our last visit The past couple months have been hard work but my nurse practitioner says the small steps I've been taking have really begun to pay off. My cholesterol is down but I still have a little ways to go on my triglycerides. We got a new dog, who gets me up and moving each day. My nurse practitioner suggested 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise each day and walking the dog is a perfect exercise for me. I really enjoy working in my garden. Boy, can I ever work up a sweat! I spend a lot of time out here, because working in the garden is not only good exercise, but also a good stress reliever. I've seen a positive difference in my important numbers such as blood pressure and cholesterol. My nurse practitioner and I think that a change in my diet has also contributed to the success I've had so far. I've begun cooking healthier meals for myself and my family. And one of my favorites is broiled asparagus. I'm also reading food labels more closely and trying to focus on more protein and fewer carbs. I find sewing a useful way to make my son and the patients that I work with live life a little bit easier. It's also very relaxing for me and a great way to reduce stress. We just saw Peggy working at her home and enjoying her home. But now, she's joined us in the studio. I'd like to welcome you back, Peggy to the Sewing with Nancy studio. I was really pleased to hear that you're having better levels, better numbers. Congratulations! Thank you. It is challenging, though, keeping up with the exercise. The diet has been easier. But when it's hot, the last thing I feel like doing is going outside and perspiring more. Certainly. So, it's something that I continue to struggle with. My desire is to not perspire as much but got to bite the bullet, you have to. I think all of us who want to exercise more and eat better we have good weeks and then we have weeks that aren't so good. So, it's normal. And you can follow Peggy's weekly diary when you go to the Sewing with Nancy site. So, you can certainly click on "Nancy's Corner" and follow along. One of the reasons you were chosen for the Heart to Heart Challenge is because you were a fellow sewer. We saw Peggy sewing on the tape. You were working on some jeans. My youngest son has Muscular Dystrophy and is in a power wheelchair. So, one thing we found is that he wants to look age-appropriate and wear some jeans. I buy them in a larger size than what he normally wears and then take out the zipper and take it down to the crotch just to make it easier for toileting and dressing. I put in Velcro tabs that make it much easier. You used a little ponytail holder? Sometimes, some of the jeans depending on the size or how Kyle's tummy feels at the time we use the ponytail holder to kind of fudge the waist and give him a little bit extra dimension if he needs it, and otherwise without. It's kind of an easy, cheap modification. Great idea! As we mentioned, Peggy is an occupational therapist. I know from our conversations that you have modified things for your clients. The remaking and modifying is an important part of your life. That is an important part to many of our viewers, as well. It saves money if you can take something off the clearance rack and make it work, instead of paying for adaptive clothing from a private store. Peggy, thank you for being with us again. Peggy is going to be joining us one more time during the last program of our series. But, in the meantime, you can follow Peggy's progress and be inspired to make a commitment to begin your own heart healthy program with the assistance of the American Heart Association's free online resource and tools. You can go to sewingwithnancy.com and you can click on "Nancy's Corner". You'll find information on the 2300 series section. I hope you'll do that and join me in doing this. I thank you for joining us during this two-part series on "Magical Serger Techniques." Next time, we'll have a new program. Thanks for joining me. Bye for now. Nancy and Pam Mahshie have written a fully-illustrated book entitled "Magical Serger Techniques" which includes all the information from this two-part series. It's $14.99, plus shipping and handling. To order the book, call 1-800-336-8373

or visit our Web site at

sewingwithnancy.com/2317 Order Item No. BK2317, "Magical Serger Techniques." Credit Card orders only. To pay by check or money order call the number on the screen for details. Visit Nancy's Web site for more information on this program. Sewing with Nancy TV's longest airing sewing and quilting program with Nancy Zieman is made possible by Baby Lock Madeira Threads Koala Cabinets Clover Amazing Designs and Klass Needles. Closed captioning funding provided by Rowenta.