Day 4 Hexie Queen Blog Hop/serger notes

Hasn't this hop been quite inspiring so far?  Tree skirts, even a skirt on the cutest little one, bags, pillows, mug rugs and candle mats, quilts and exquisite wall hangings.  Wowie!  I wonder what this group of participants will bring today!

Friday, August 23
Sew Peace to Peace

Quilt Crossing 

sarah did it!

Jane’s Quilting 

Life in the Scrapatch

Lixie Makes It 

Creative Notions 

Modern Handcraft

Feathered Nest Studio 

Moneik Quilts

On a personal note, I did finally finish that binding but not before I wondered if I was not going to develop calluses on my backside or a permanently bent neck.  Skyler let me sew on uh, without his "assistance" yesterday, LOL.

The serger is out of the box but still have not plugged it in.  I spent part of the afternoon/evening jockeying between you tube videos on sergers and the Cards/Braves game scores.  I went through the manual as bedtime reading.  Today I want to look at the two CDs that came with it: one of instructions and one of serger techniques though I think it might be similar to the 7 part you tube videos from the Brother educator.  I should say that I have had sergers before.  One  I gave away to a fellow but far more prolific Wrap Them in Love quilter who needed it far more than I did and her machine had died a noble death.  A second one, I sold to one of the Belles because I was not doing any craft sewing.  Now I am.  These are not totally foreign to me but a little review or learning what is different about this one is always good.

One helpful video I spotted from a serger user "Crafy Kraut" at http://youtu.be/szV4sGbmjZM that advised making a quick visual for serger tension.  She used strips cut and then numbered 0 through 9 to correspond to the tension settings, using one strip for upper looper, lower looper, right needle and left needle.  You put the machine through its paces and slowly work up the tension dial concentrating on just one area at a time.  Then when/if the machine' stitching looks a little funky you have something to refer to and can change the number accordingly and be able to know which dial needs to be turned.  That is important when there are 4 of them!!  Then zeroing in the culptrit does it  need tightening or loosening, which way should you turn the dial.  She said she had used a spotted it on a you tube video but had lost the link.  A commenter told her that the video in question was probably The "Secret" to Taming Your Serger by Susan Nixon1.  Ms. Nixon gave directions on what size to cut the strips so it might be more helpful.  I'm pinning both of them, LOL.
Anyway, I finding some light fabric I don't mind giving up and doing this little exercise while it is still threaded with the multi-color threads at the factory.

Then I want to do this------

Cut some of the leftover fabrics to make a case to hold the two tree skirts I made for my family members and zip those up!  Get those mailed on up to the niece and nephew.  I don't think I want to pack these in my suitcase when I go home in October!

You know where to find me!  Yep, I am going to play with my new toy and I believe I have earned the right to tell my slave driver boss (me of course) to take a hike!