[lattemama]

I made this top yesterday using my serger. First time with knits and it went ok.

But I had some serger issues.

The second needle thread on my serger kept skipping as soon as I sewed across more than two layers of fabric (e.g. neck band and shoulder seam). The thread would go into the fabric but wouldn’t catch. It’s hard to explain what it looked like without a picture, but I was in the middle of sewing and trying to fix it, I didn’t take the time to take a pic.

Does it sound familiar? Is there something wrong with my machine or just with the settings?

[Nicole]

I would say its a setting(tension problem) or check your needles,are they nice and sharp and ball point?

Your manual should have a trouble shooting guide,this should be helpful Lotta.

If you change your tension always make note of the setting before you start.

[lattemama]

I think so too. The needles are brand new and the right kind so it’s looking like it is a tension thing. The manual is not helpful. It said nothing about this problem.

I’m thinking a call to the aunt is in order.

Thanks Nicole!

[Nicole]

I will have a look in my manual in the morning and get back to you Lotta!

Have you recently broken a thread and needed to re-thread? Some machines have a special threading order

[Violaisabelle]

I would have guessed it was a needle problem. If you just recently put in new needles, did you double check to make sure the needle is all the way in and properly for your machine? If you were sewing just two pieces of fabric together did you have any skipping problems? If the answer is no, only when you went over these bulky seams, I would tend to think it might be a pressure foot issue. The pressure foot is not putting even pressure on the fabric to push down onto the feed dogs. If you sew two pieces of fabric together and it does skip sometimes, then I might look at the tension to see if the thread is all the way into the tension dial. I have made the mistake before of not getting my thread all the way into the dial (although it looks like it is) and of course that messes with the stitching. You can also carefully clean out the tension dial to make sure there are no pieces of lint or thread causing issues for the thread to slip through nicely.

Good luck, I hope you get it worked out.

Carol

[lattemama]

Thank you Carol and Nicole!

I think I have it figured out now. I did some fiddling with my tension and ran *very*slowly over any bulky seams and it seems like that did the trick.

I did break a needle though and ended up having to re-thread the entire machine (not easy when the bulb is broken and I can’t remove it for the life of me).

In the end (after having to go over the waistline seam twice because the fabric had gotten away from me I realised I had sewn the waistband on wrong (I twisted it 90 degrees on the Nature Walk Pants so that the side seams of the waistband ended up against front and back seam of the crotch.

Clearly not my night.

I was going to cut out a Hopscotch for Sofia but I think I’m gonna cut my losses and get a dose of Doctor Who instead.

Thanks again ladies!