Wednesday, March 3, 2010

My Ugly Relationship with My Serger

Yesterday started off with so much promise...
A dress nearly done, new projects cut and ready to sew. A new design to plan out for a friend.
Why did it have to go bad like that? Why?
I take excellent care of my serger - I do. I clean it, oil it, change it's needles.
When others scoff at it's El Cheapo price tag & quality I always rush to it's defense. I stood by, when light bulbs repeatedly fell out for no reason. I handled it with grace when my stitch finger broke - over, and over, and over... I've replaced brand new needles repeatedly to fix unexplained skipped stitches, and even played with dials for hours to get the tension just right.

I ask, is this any way to repay my adoration?

I should have known from day one that this would be an unhealthy relationship.  There were signs from the very beginning. This model has a history of giving ladies trouble, breaking stitch fingers all over the country. Less than a year into it, mine broke as well... I refused to give up, and gave it another chance. Then another, and another... Then I started to notice other things as well. It refused to hold onto a light bulb, and I began serging in the dark. Tension built as we couldn't agree on  settings, first the loopers, then the needles - it didn't matter what I tried - it was always playing games with me.

Why did I put up with it all these years? 
I know this serger like the back of my hand, I could thread it with my eyes closed. And I guess I've just grown submissive,  this serger is my first - and only - could I ever be with another? What if I did leave, would I end up with another machine just like it?  

Enough is Enough.
My stitch finger has broken for the last time. Yesterday I super-glued it together - again - and the next time it pulls this crap on me I'm out the door and  finding a new machine. One who appreciates all I do for it, and respects me enough to serge in return. Oh sure, I'll keep this one around for a rolled or narrow hem every now and then, but as for all 4 threads - this is it's last chance.

And this time I mean it.







5 comments:

  1. LOL! I spend at least 5 hours today working on French seams and wishing for a Serger to fall out of the sky. I feel a little better now :)

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  2. Lol, glad I could help! BTW, I love french seams, I even wrote a whole post about how lovely they are! And if Sergers start falling from the sky - get indoors! :o)

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  3. Hi Leslie. I've had one of those pesky sergers before, and fixed many more for people. One of the things I found was the tension disc for the right needle wasn't balanced properly from the factory. I'd take all threads out, floss your tension discs with about 5 layers of thread wrapped around your finger (just like flossing your teeth), and then try it again. Should fix the breaking thread/needle issue.

    Also, when the thread or needle breaks be sure to check your needle for burrs. New needles aren't necessarily burr free. All it takes is one itty bitty slip of the needle to get a burr on it.

    Can't help you with the bulbs falling out other than to say they may not be twisted in properly. There is a little suction cup thing you can buy from your dealer that helps put them on better. let's face it, the makers of sergers had no idea we'd ever need to replace the bulb, so they parked it way up north in the machine.

    Glueing the stitch finger back on? Yikes. You could have dried glue burrs underneath that finger that's catching the thread and breaking it. Please get a new one. You can find them cheap on ebay.

    Happy sewing!

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  4. Oh, I also meant to ask. Are you sure you're threading it in the right order? Most all sergers thread in the same order, but I have run across a few that flip-flop the upper and lower looper threading order.

    Just thinking out loud. I sew for a living and I've had my own share of nightmare experiences on all types of machines.

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  5. Hi Polly!
    Thanks for all the info - I appreciate all the help!
    I did post a while ago about flossing my tension disks and it really worked wonders on my tension problems. Great minds think alike!
    I don't really have a problem with thread or needles breaking on me - it's a skipped stitch problem that has me constantly changing needles. Would this be a bur problem? It doesn't matter what brand I use either.
    As for the super glued stitch finger - I could hear the collective shudder around the sewing-blog world when I posted that! LOL! This happens to me A LOT. I have a hard time finding a replacement (I did check eBay as you suggested, but couldn't find one) and when I have replaced it - the new one eventually broke. I know it happens to be very common to my particular model. So far - the glue doesn't cause any problems, and holds up at least as well as a new stitch finger, lol!
    Oh - and yes. I've had this serger for probably 8 years, I can thread it in 30 seconds flat with my eyes closed. It's one of the reasons I don't want to part with it, lol!
    If you have any more ideas I'd love to hear them! Thanks a bunch!

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~Leslie
Cherry Bubbins

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