Pam Crosby brings her Wardrobe of Serged Garments

The Urge to Serge is certainly an appropriate title for Pam Crosby and all the wonderful clothing items she brought to share with us.

Pam's pattern and fabric favorites are from: 
The Sewing Workshop
www.sewingworkshop.com

Cutting Line Designs
www.cuttinglinedesigns.com

Casual Elegance Fabric, Loes Hinse patterns
www.casualelegancefabric.com

She also buys fabric locally when she can, from Fields and
Fabrications.

Fabrications, great place for fabric and classes
http://www.fabricationsonline.com/


The following pictures show all the different types of fabrics she uses, while using only a few different patterns.

This lacy bottom was made by stitching around once with the knife engaged and then stitching around again with the knife disengaged.

This is a chain stitch trim, using 12 wt sulky in the looper and regular thread in the needle.

A couple of the tips she gave us include, using 5 threads on the serger for most garments.  Pam uses 3-4 threads for t-shirts or heavier fabric. She uses a narrow 3 thread to finish the edges when she wants to make a seam to press open.  She uses the wide 3 thread on knits as it is a very stretchy seam.
Pam uses a flat locking technique on the serger to attach lace to a garment.
To attach elastic to the waist of pants or skirt, Pam seams the elastic together, opens the elastic seam, and attachs it to the right side of the pant with a normal zig zag on the sewing machine. She then flips to the wrong side and secures at each of 4 seams. She uses 1 1/2" elastic, a soft elastic but not non roll. She often buys the elastic from Louise Cutting or the Sewing Workshop.
Most of her hems she just folds up and stitches on a regular sewing machine.
It is important, especially with knits and slippery fabric, to test your machine on the fabric, adjust the tension if need be and then keep samples of what you did for next time.

Listening Intently

The Brown Bag Challenge

We each put 5 items in a bag and then randomly took home some one else's items to challenge ourselves to create something. Great challenge.

Jennifer from Jeanne

Alexa from Susan

Alexa from Susan

Sue from Jonetta

Sue from Jonetta

Pam from Sherry

Wendy From Jennifer

Susan from Alexa

Sue J. from Sue V.

Judy from Pam

Sherry from Judy

Show and Tell

Barbara is making adorable dolls for a charity overseas.

Judy made some wonderful handwoven towels

Wendy made this fabric Highland Cow for a present for her son.

Alexa has been very busy making smaller beads.