A Review of the L860

I got in some quality time with the new serger yesterday. I really like it. When Bernina designs something, they don’t just assume what their end-users want and then shove it down their throats. Instead, they gather together a group of sewists and ask them what they would like. This machine reflects that level of consideration.

The new serger is quiet. It is almost as quiet as my industrial serger.

It has a knee lift for the presser foot (not shown in the picture). I have a knee lift for my Janome 6600P, although I’ve never used it because it feels awkward to me. We were told in the Mystery Make class to get used to “driving” the foot pedal with our left foot and operating the knee lift with our right leg. I could make myself do that—it would be akin to driving a car with a manual transmission—but this serger is currently sitting on a sewing machine cabinet and the knee lift doesn’t have enough room to move back and forth due to the drawers on the right. I will try the machine on the table that I use for my Accuquilt cutter (a plastic folding one from Costco) and see if that’s comfortable. I suspect that if I could get used to it, the knee lift would be a game changer.

The extension table came standard and it’s wonderful. I like not having to prop up the work at the left side to keep it from dragging. The only thing better would be to have this machine in a cabinet where the extension table sits flush with the surface and forms a flatbed.

I didn’t think I would care about the air-threading capability but it’s very nice. Literally all you have to do is press down the foot pedal, hold the thread over the vacuum port and whoosh!—it sucks the thread through the machine and spits it out by the presser foot. Brilliant.

The nicest feature, though, is that Bernina didn’t make these sergers so idiot-proof that they aren’t adjustable. I’ve seen that with a few of the other brands. In an attempt to make their machines more user friendly, other manufacturers took away the ability to make any adjustments. If anything, Bernina made these machines easier to adjust in small increments and I appreciate that. Like the Q20, this machine has a touch screen and electronic controls. The first thing I did was to slow the speed down from 1500 stitches per minute to 1000 spm, LOL. I’m good, but 1500 spm is a bit high even for me.

I bought the set of presser feet that go with this serger, but they are on backorder. That was a bit of a problem yesterday while making the apron. The first step is to put the zipper into the front pocket.

[The husband asked why an apron needed a front zipper pocket and I said that this was a pattern intended to teach serging skills, but a front zipper pocket is also a good place for a phone.]

The best way to insert a zipper with a serger is using a piping foot. The piping foot has a groove underneath:

The teeth of the zipper ride in that groove. I tried with the regular presser foot and the foot kept bumping up against the teeth of the zipper.

I don’t have the piping foot for the Bernina. I don’t have a piping foot for my Juki domestic serger, either, but I ordered one yesterday. The Juki is the machine that is going to go back and forth with me to class. If I have students in class who don’t have piping feet for their machines, I want to have mine available for them to use.

I cheated a bit and put in the zipper with my sewing machine. It’s literally the first step and I want to get these aprons done and off my list.

My comment to the husband was that this is one of those instances when just because everything can be done on a serger, that doesn’t mean that a serger is the best—or only—tool for the job. The intent of this pattern is that everything be done on the serger. That works, but I found half a dozen places on the apron where I would have liked to have added topstitching with the sewing machine. If I were making the apron for myself, I would have done that.

I still have to attach the waistband to the apron. I ran out of time yesterday. This part of the pattern suggests using a decorative thread in the upper looper, so I’m going to try the 8wt Razzle rayon thread from Wonderfil.