Beginning Serger Bootcamp

On Monday, June 20, I taught a beginner serger class to a group of wonderful students at the Bullitt County Cooperative Extension Service office.  There were 8 students in the class who were eager to learn about their sergers.  Some of them hadn't taken their sergers out of its box, yet!  But, with a lot of practice and some demonstration, they were re-threading and experimenting with new serger techniques - getting comfortable with their sergers - by the end of the day.

The students know each other from a sewing club which meets at the Extension office regularly, so they interacted very well with each other.  I quickly became very comfortable instructing them in learning their sergers. 

Every student had a different serger, which made the class a little more interesting!  Everyone was instructed to bring their machine manual, and they had to refer to it from time to time.

The students were given instruction on how to set up their sergers for a narrow three-thread balanced stitch, using three different colors of threads.  I instructed them in how to look for the upper looper and lower looper threads interlocking on the cut edge of the fabric.  They had to make many samples while tweaking their serger tension settings to get just the right balance of stitches.  Then they were instructed in how to find the quarter inch stitching line on their individual serger.

I had such great fun teaching this class, and the students were thrilled with their success in learning to use their sergers!  So much so, they asked me to come back next month to teach them more.  So, we'll work on serger rolled edges and serger flatlock stitching.