Old School Serging

Yesterday’s Serger 101 class was a lot of fun. The lady from the Joanns cut counter did indeed sign up, so I had two students. She brought an old, old Juki MO-104 three-thread serger.

(Pic borrowed from the internet because I forgot to take a picture of her machine.)

According to the Juki website, that MO-100 series of sergers came out in the 1970s. I am sure they were state of the art at the time, but hers now holds the record for the oldest serger I have ever had in class. Except for needing some oil—and it could stand to have a good servicing anyway—the machine serged beautifully. She was thrilled when she was able to thread it with a decorative variegated thread in the top looper and make a colorful edging on some flannel baby blankets.

The other lady had a new Bernette serger, which is the lower-end line of Bernina machines. They still have the same air-threading technology as my Bernina L860 does, however. I got her comfortable with changing settings and tensions, and by the end of class, she was experimenting with all sorts of stitches. The lady with the Juki saw what she was doing and asked me if she could do those same things on her machine. Unfortunately, those early machines are pretty limited. She can’t do rolled hems, and even serging knits is going to be trickier with only three threads (she wants to take the ponte pants class and I doubt she will be able to sew that fabric on her machine). We talked about upgrading and I gave her some options. I pointed out that if she wants a newer machine, she doesn’t have to spend a boatload of money, and that knowing the limitations of her current machine will help her decide what features she wants to pay for.

Today is an all-day serger apron class at the other quilt store.

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The other night, while surfing Pinterest at 11:30 pm because I couldn’t sleep, I ran across a website called Dresspatternmaking.com, so I popped over and took a look. Oh.My.Goodness. This is a whole website devoted to drafting your own sewing patterns. I even purchased and downloaded an e-book on making my own bodice block. I do know some of this from my knitting design days, but sewing is a different beast. The author writes:

In the garment production industry, these systems work well. A pattern is drafted to a figure with predetermined proportions. All other sizes are based on that initial figure; they are ‘graded up’ or down. In this system, there is a proportional relationship between certain measurements (e.g. hip and thigh), so that proportion needs to remain consistent for every size.

She notes that this system works well if your body shape is similar to that being used as the standard in the industry.

However, if your body is different in a large degree to the Standard Figure that the block making instructions are based on, and you also differ in a number of ways (very small waist, larger hips, smaller thighs, large protruding bottom), it can be very difficult to determine where to start to make adjustments, especially if you are new to sewing or fitting.

She has devised a system, particularly, for fitting bodices based on cup size rather than full bust measurements, which makes total sense and is the one area that frustrates me beyond belief. I could have the exact same full bust measurement with a D-cup that someone else has with a B-cup, because their weight is distributed differently. If I choose a pattern size based on full bust measurement, it is going to fit me badly in the shoulders and upper bodice. (WELCOME TO MY WORLD OF SHOPPING READY TO WEAR.) I would have to choose a smaller size and do a full bust adjustment. How much nicer it would be to be able to draft my own tops to fit ME and not have to do a FBA or use hacks like a boob bump. (That BB method does work well with knits, though, I have to admit.)

[I have concluded that one of the reasons most Liz Claiborne stuff fits me (reasonably) well is because my body shape must be close to that of the blocks they are using for drafting their lines.]

I plan to study this designer’s methods before my pants-fitting class next month because I am sure we are going to have some fitting issues that need to be addressed. And I need to enlist the husband’s help for measuring again, because I need about 30 different measurements and can’t take them all myself.