Ok, am I the only one who stresses out about wasting thread when I’m serging? My serger manual says that after I serge a length, I should serge 4 inches off of just thread. It just seems like such a waste to me. I feel like I’m always going through so much thread! But maybe I just serge a lot of stuff. I don’t know. I’m weird about stuff sometimes.
Anyway, here’s my solution.
We use cloth tissues. I’ll tell you more about them another time, just suffice it to say that they are so much nicer on runny noses. We also use cloth wipes for the baby’s bottom. They’re both very easy to make, and we can always use more, so I keep a stack of unmade ones beside the serger. The tissues are a single layer of flannel. The wipes are 2 layers of flannel, or even better, they’re 2 layers- one of flannel and one of sherpa or terrycloth.
See? Back there, to the right in back of the serger? That’s my stack of unmade wipes and tissues.
You can see I’m working on the skirt from thepatchwork apron dress in these pictures and serging onto a tissue. When I’m serging an outfit or something, I will simply leave a tiny tail of serger thread, then start the next part of the outfit. Once I run out of outfit parts to serge, then I start a tissue or baby wipe right away. I’ll just leave the wipe on the serger when I’m not using it and when I come back, I’ll finish it up and move on to whatever I’m working on!
Sometimes things need a longer tail so I can fold it back on the item and secure it in place – like the end of a sleeve or a pants leg. In this case, I just leave a longer tail, like the one you can see above. I cut it close to the tissue to leave a long enough tail.
So there you go. Not a big deal, just a quick tip I found to help save thread! What sort of really simple serging tips do you know of?
Chrissy Leiberan-Titus writes for Muse of the Morning.com
