Sergers and Circles

I thought yesterday’s serger class went well. Machines included a couple of late 80s-vintage Bernette sergers—one three-thread and one four-thread—a couple of older Husqvarnas, and two brand-new air-threading models (Janome and Bernette). I can safely say now that Husqvarnas are my least favorite sergers. I have never seen such needlessly complicated machines with such badly written manuals.

I was able to guide everyone in getting their machines threaded and making a chain. One student—there is one in every class—took off like a rocket and had three flannel baby blankets done by the end of class. Several others got at least one blanket done. Only two students never got past the threading and chaining stage. One was an older lady with a vintage Bernette four-thread serger that had belonged to her late sister. She said it was difficult with her eyes and her hands to thread the machine, and she knew coming in that she might have problems. The other lady’s machine made a beautiful three-thread chain, but we couldn’t get it to pick up the left needle thread. After class, I saw her talking to the store owner about a new machine, LOL.

Truly, for a beginning serging class, getting students grounded in the basics of needles, thread, and fabric and walking them through threading their machines is about all you can expect in three hours. That’s assuming, too, that everyone comes in with a working machine. The vintage sergers don’t scare me, but they do have some quirks. The newer air threading machines are quite nice if you have the budget for one, but my Jukis are good, solid, inexpensive machines and I plan to keep using them for a long while yet.

I stopped in at the other quilt store yesterday and talked to the owner there about some serger classes. She also wants to offer a Serger 101 class. I will look at their class schedule for the next couple of months and see when they have some open dates.

Next up is the T-shirt class, two weeks from today.

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I picked up the other set of ribbon candy rulers at the store yesterday, as well as another spool of red Aurifil thread for the bobbin thread of the Kindness quilt. The borders and corners are done, and yesterday morning, I experimented with a pattern in the narrow red border:

I like it and will use it in the rest of the border. I made these with one of the Amanda Murphy Mini Lollipop rulers that we’re using in Ruler Club (which reminds me that I need to get my homework done on the practice quilt before next Tuesday’s class). I think I might have liked these a bit closer together, but I am not taking this out. I do tend to err on the side of less rather than more and need to work on finding a happy medium of quilting density.

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I’m slowly working on finishing up the projects I started last year. I would like to get back to the Slabtown Backpack at some point. I’m also in the middle of another Little Poppins Bag. I started it almost as soon as I finished the first one. This one is going much more quickly now that I’ve deciphered the horrible instructions, but I had to fix a pocket yesterday because I put it on upside down. The exterior is a directional print and I forgot to check the orientation when sewing on the pocket. Oops. Oh well, it’s fixed now.

It looks like we have a winter storm coming in tonight. I’ll have to see if I can make it to sewing tomorrow at the old schoolhouse up the road. If not, I’ll just hunker down here and work my way through the list of projects. I’ve researched some setting ideas for the Sunbonnet Sue blocks and I am pretty sure I know what I want to do with those blocks. That top should go together quickly once I’ve got the sashing made.