conquering the serger's top stitching function

i actually made this uh... in april? seems i'm a bit behind in the posting since (despite wedding sewing) i've actually been churning out one to two finished projects a week for quite a while. and, much of what i have sewn has been knitwear. i've needed quick projects that don't require much by way of fitting and that are well, practical. there is nothing like warm weather to dial up the need for casual tops and dresses!

this is the first t-shirt i've made and it was not without it's challenges. as much as i prefer a woven stripe (as opposed to a printed one) when i washed this material, the whole thing twisted sideways. had i sewn before washing, the twist would have been a good six to eight inches! so cutting was something of a challenge as this is a very lightweight rayon (?) blend. near tissue weight. if you LOOK at it, it moves.

sewing it up however, proved to be much less difficult than the actual cutting. i did neck and arm bindings similar to the renfrew, only much narrower. i topstitched with a narrow zig zag to keep the bindings from going wonky. then, i hemmed the damn thing.


so this is where things went awry...

this stretchy, lightweight, tissue-thin material did NOT want to be hemmed. i know there's a whole lot-o-people out there who are all like "AND IT'S KNIT SO IT WON'T RAVEL SO I DON'T HAVE TO HEM IT! YAY!" i am just not one of them. i don't judge the non-hemmers (much...) but to me, it isn't finished until it's hemmed. it seemed my only recourse was to figure out how to do a top stitch on the serger. the instruction manual claims that this is possible, though my previous attempts to do so seemed to prove otherwise.

so close! looking okay from the outside, however my looper
was too tight... or maybe my needle wasn't loose enough...
actually, it was probably both.

determined to figure this out, i spent 4 hours with a pile of scrap material until finally... finally! i achieved something that was passable. so if you've never tried this, it is worth fiddling with for the off chance it is needed for a hem or some interesting decorative stitching.

right side—this is one of my tests. i used a different color
for each thread as i figured out the proper tension.

wrong side—see how the raw edge is enclosed? happy me!

basically what you do is throw off the balance of the threads and fold your fabric similar to how you would for a blind hem stitch. the tension for the left needle is loosened, and tension for the loopers is tightened. then once you have sewn, you open up the fold and end up with vertical stitches on the right side, and what looks similar to a coverstitch on the wrong side. for the actual hem on my tee, i used thread that matches and it blends right in. but, you could definitely use a contrasting color for fun!

so take that impossible to hem fabric! you won't see me with a raw edge.


—lisa g.