My Poor Old Serger

Back in the 80’s, I was visiting one of my aunts and saw this crazy machine thing in her sewing room. I couldn’t figure out why a machine would need multiple spools.

It was the first serger I ever saw. A Singer Ultralock 14u64a.

Several years ago, that very serger arrived at my house as a gift from my mom. I didn’t use it tons, but I discovered I really liked having it around.

I still use it here and there, even with some of my historical clothing. If I don’t have time to hand sew seams to keep them from unraveling, the serger is there to finish the job quickly.

I use it on a lot of around-the-house jobs as well. Old shirts and scraps of fabric are turned into cleaning cloths. I go over the cut ends of purchased fabric before I toss it into the washer and dryer to clean and pre-shrink it.

I intended to start using more of the features and maybe even work on some modern clothing (I’m one of those distracted sorts who would rather spend money on fabric and accessories for costumes, and clear out closet space of regular clothing to make room for said costumes heheh).

Unfortunately, my serger stopped working in the middle of a quick project.

I could probably take the machine in for a really good cleaning and to see if any parts need to be replaced, but by the time that was done I could have purchased a brand new machine.

At first I was very annoyed at the thought of spending money on something I didn’t know I would need right now. Afterall, I still need to purchase my husband’s shoes and some more fabric for his costume.

And then I started getting excited about it.

I found a serger that was affordable enough, and yes. Brand new. Why not? Both of my machines have been gifts, so this is my first time picking something out. And it was kind of fun!

Fortunately for me, my birthday is coming up and I visited my mother-in-law over the weekend. She knew I needed to replace my serger, so she gave me cash as a gift to help with buying a new serger. Yay!

The new serger should arrive on my birthday! I can’t wait to play with it!

I’m currently taking it easy with sewing.

The fabric I was serging was a ruffle overlay. I wanted to see if I could add a little more oomph to my false rump without damaging the actual form. The best and quickest way I could think of was to make a ruffle overlay. If I didn’t like it, I could just remove the stitches tacking it down. I’m not concerned with it showing serged edges or not. I’m just testing it out to see what I think for future versions.

I was also working on my husband’s breeches, but I think I’m going to take a break on those.

With everything going on — needing to replace my serger, my birthday (my husband wants to buy me an expensive gift), needing to buy his shoes, scrambling to work on garments and purchase other accessories and fabrics… I realized I was pushing it and feeling a little miserable.

I had wanted him to finally attend an event, especially the picnic in November, in costume. The problem is, I was running out of time and most likely he would have been missing his jacket. He didn’t really want to wear the costume unless the entire outfit was finished.

It just makes sense to not push it.

And now I’m wondering if I should bother finishing these breeches. You see, I originally was going to use a costume pattern as a quick and easy fix to crank out the breeches. I purchased a little thicker fabric because I knew the costume-y breeches might potentially bug Christopher. I should have known better, because as I suspected I ended up hating the pattern and pulling out a book showing more historical construction.

I didn’t want to purchase better fabric, so I used the heavier/thicker stuff. Big mistake. It’s very difficult to gather the fabric, and doing some of the hand sewing has proven to be almost painful. I’m at a point where I’m so close to finishing it, but it just keeps getting more and more annoying.

So now I need to decide: Do I go ahead and attempt to finish these (they would be fine for cold-weather or muddy locations), or do I just toss them in storage and start all over with better fabric?

I’ll figure it out, but for now I’m just going to relax and finish up a few of my costume accessories.

There will be other events. Hopefully I’ll work some of the bugs out of the design and do a little better job next time!