Serger: Beyond the Basics Session 2: Blind Hemming with Your Serger

Let's get right into it and start out with the blind hemmer. One thing that I like to emphasize to folks with serging and with machine sewing for that matter, is be friends with the owner's manual and with any reference material that comes with your machine. They are your friends, and they're usually very, very well-written and will save you much frustration if you will just simply open them, look at the pictures, and read the text. I happen to have a Baby Lock serger. In fact, this is my second one, this is the enlightened. And recently Baby Lock has come out with an inspirational guide, and I am in love with it. It has actually made serging so much more enjoyable and so easy, because the information is right at my fingertips. And today I'm going to show you what this guide looks like, and use it throughout the different segments. The guide itself is a quick recap of what's in the owner's manual with a little bit more information. It gives you some charts for your different types of threads. It talks a little bit briefly about some of the important things like the needle positions and threading. Shows you all the different accessories. We're gonna come back to that page. And then it actually shows you how to use the machine. So, for the blind hem application, it's back in the latter portion of the book under the 2-thread narrow flatlock. And other manufacturers have similar type guides for their machines. And it is well worth the cost to procure one. It tells me exactly how to set up the machine. And I've already got my machine set up. But it tells me which selector positions I need to be in to make that stitch. It shows me the position of the needle, if it needs to be right, left or both. It shows the stitch length, the stitch width. It also is showing the differential feed, which is a very important setting, especially when we get into the gathering portion. And then it shows me where I need to have my blade set, how fast to sow, and if I need that subsidiary looper engaged or not. Now, the subsidiary looper, in case that's a term you've forgotten, is this little piece here. It's a little device that goes over the upper looper, and it makes it so that that thread is not used. On mine, it's actually attached to the looper, which is nice. On other machines, it may be another part that you physically have to put onto the looper. But it comes over, and in any case, it actually goes into, there's a little hole, I don't know if the camera's gonna catch it. But there's a little hole on the looper there, and it clicks in. Maybe you can hear that, I'll be real quiet. Okay, when that's clicked in, you know that the subsidiary looper is engaged. All right, so, I am now all set up for a 2-thread narrow flatlock. You may notice that my large cones of thread are missing. And oh my gosh, that's a sewing machine bobbin. Well, you know what? It's okay. Because if you're only needing a little bit of thread, there's nothing to say that you can't use small spools of thread. They will work in your serger just fine. It's regular sewing machine thread. This one happens to be 100% polyester, or you can use cotton. It depends on what type of fabric that you're working with. And then I wound a little bit onto a bobbin for my needle thread, and that's going to work just fine. Now, the first first thing I'm gonna show you is how to set up for a blind hem. Blind hem is a tricky little technique that a lot of people have problems with when they're using their sewing machine. And the problem is trying to figure out, "How do I fold the fabric?" So, we're going to pretend that this fabric is a garment. And this would be the top of the garment, whether it's a shirt or pants or a skirt or a dress, it doesn't matter, it's a garment that needs a hem. And this would be the lower edge. Normally on a sewing machine, we would turn that over a quarter of an inch and stitch it, and then it would come up and make the hem. All right. If you were doing this on a sewing machine, you would still do the quarter inch and top stitch it. And then what happens is, where the actual hemline is, we fold it back. So this would be your quarter inch, and then your hem would fold back like that. And what happens is, as the needle is coming along on the sewing machine, it takes a straight stitch, several stitches, usually four or five. So it's going to go stitch, stitch, stitch ditch. And then it swings over to the fold here. So here's my sewing machine needle, stitch, stitch, stitch, swings over, takes a bite. And when I say a bite, ideally it's only catching one thread of that fold, swings back, stitch stitch, stitch, bite, back, stitch, stitch, stitch. So you have kind of a little zigzag effect. The serger is not going to do that. It rides differently. First of all, we don't have to finish this edge. The joy of the serger and with the blind hem is, it's going to finish this edge, it's going to trim off the excess, and it's going to hem it all at once. Talk about a time saver, this is wonderful. So, it's just getting coordinated enough to do it. It's kind of the old, you gotta hold your tongue just right, yeah, as you're sitting on your stool, and making sure everything lines up. But once you get the hang of it, it really is a piece of cake. So in this case, the needle is going to be coming along. And what you're going to see here is, the knife is going to cut off this excess. There's going to be a little tiny, it almost looks like a spiral of thread right next to the hem. And then the needle is going to be taking a little bite out every so often out of the folded fabric. And we ideally want to just catch one thread. And you will notice a big difference between a sewing machine blind hem and a serge blind hem, is that the spacing is a lot closer. Your stitches will be very, very close together. You can put it down so that it's almost right next to each other literally. I usually put it up on the highest setting, and even that is very, very close together. And you're gonna see that in just a second when we start to serge. So, this is how you set up your hem. Go ahead and have your two inch hem, three inch, whatever your hem is going to be, have that. Plus I allow anywhere between a quarter and a half an inch, no more than a half an inch for the portion that's going to be cut off by the knife. Once you get that pressed, then turn it over and bring your hem or the rest of your garment rather back, so that only that quarter of an inch or half an inch of raw edge is showing. And I like to give it a light press just to give me a good firm line that I can see under the needle as I'm working, and it's not shifting. And it will make your work look much more professional if you take that extra minute. So, that's kind of what it looks like. When I unfolded it, it's almost like a zigzag there, kind of a hill and Valley effect. And I'm doing this with an orange fabric with a blue thread so you can see the contrast first, and see how the stitches mane, and where the needle is going in. And then we're gonna do it on some matching fabric so you can see how much better it looks when the thread and the fabric match. And you'll see that that stitch, when you get it down, can be almost invisible. Now let me introduce you to the little beast that does all this work. This is a blind hem foot. And it will have a marking on it. And in the manual, because I can never remember which foot is which, because it usually will be quite a while between time for me to use an accessory. I may go several months before I use something. I can go in here and find out exactly which foot it is that I need to work with. So I come over here and I look at blind hem, and it shows me that it is letter H, which in this case stands for hemmer. So that was a pretty intuitive on the manufacturer's part. And I liked that, I like it when they keep it simple. So let's look at how this foot is set up. Here's where it's going to attach. That's the attachment bar that attaches to the presser foot. And I'll show you how to put it on in just a second. And right here, you've got, and I hope you can see this. There is a little point. It comes up like a scallop to a point and then back down. That little point is literally pointing at the needle that helps you really see it as you're sewing. On the side here, is a curved guide. It comes along, and it's a little attachment onto the foot. And that's what's going to ride along the fabric. So as we're doing this, we're going to make an adjustment with this screw here. This guide actually moves in and out. And that guide will then ride along here so that once you get it adjusted, and that's the whole ticket is getting that adjusted, you will be able to watch this edge rather than trying to follow the needle back here. That's the theory. In real life, I do find that I tend to watch back here. I actually watch both. It's almost like when you're driving, and you're watching the road but you're occasionally looking in that rear view mirror. Well, I'm watching the road up here, but I'm still looking in that rear view mirror to see where that needle is, and that it is just taking one thread. Because fabric is a tricky thing. Never trust fabric, it moves. It's not like a woodworker working with wood with a rigid object. Fabric has a life of its own. It will move, it shifts. A lot of things can happen, so I like to check both places. Now let me show you how this works. I almost hate to do it, 'cause I finally got this adjusted right where I wanted it. But you just unscrew it, and you can see now how much that comes out. There's quite a wide gap there. You shouldn't have to go that far. In most cases, you will be pretty much right next to the foot. But what makes the difference, what it pens on is, if you will, the Southern term of, it pens on. The depending factor is the thickness of your fabric. If you're working with a very thick wool or a fleece or something with a lot of bulk, you may have to put that out further for your guideline. And it really, there's a lot more room for that needle to come in because it'll be buried in a thick fabric. If you're working with something very thin like a cotton, or a very, very sheer fabric, you're gonna want that guide right up close. So it's not something that you can set and forget, you're going to need to adjust it. And you won't be adjusting off the machine, you're gonna be adjusting on the machine which you'll see in just a second. So let's go ahead and get it set up. And typically, your foot may look just slightly different. Each manufacturer has a different variation on the theme, but it usually we'll have some type of an adjustment. It may not be with a screw, it may be with a little a thumb screw that you can just turn with your fingers, or it may be one that needs a screwdriver, or it may have an Allen wrench, but there will be some type of an adjustment. Same thing here, most machines, you just lift your presser foot up and touch the drop button back there. And then I find, I just have to lift up and that foot comes right off. And that's my everyday foot. And then I just lift this up, and it's going to slip right in. So, the trick is to get, oops, your little lever bar right under the catch for it. And sometimes you have to play with it. Sometimes I have to get my head down there. And once it's in position, I will know it, because I'll hear just a little click. And then I take and reset the lever bar there. And when that's on, then it'll go up and down. If I haven't, let me drop that off for you, for it's loose. If you just get it to that point and you don't walk this in, your foot really is in on there, and it may hold for a stitch or two, but it's going to drop off. So you wanna make sure it's seated good. So I always do that double check. All right, I think we're ready to roll here. All right, so what to do is, sometimes you can slip things under. I find with the serger, that I usually have to manipulate the feet just a little bit more, even though I'm lifting up. It's almost like it's front end heavy, and I have to give a little assistance by lifting up the foot to position the fabric under it, all right? So I wanna go ahead, and I have positioned the fabric under the knife. My knife is up, and it will be trimming away that fabric, all right? Except, if I put the knife right next to my fold, look how far over my needle is. And that means I'm gonna get a stitch that's gonna be about that big that it shows. So, that's where in this case, you're going to be a little bit away. We want to line up the fold of the fabric with the guide. And that's a good start. And this is where you have to futz with it a little bit. But I've got to bring this, whoops. I've got to bring the fabric all the way back to where the needle is. All right? As you can see, there's the needle there's the little pointer, and here's my guide. So I'm just gonna take a stitch and just see if I'm in the position I want. And as you can see, that made a nice little indentation where I wanted it. If that's the case, then I can lightly tighten the guide down. If it's not, and I'm gonna undo it just so you can see, I can move my guide down to wherever I need it to be. I want it to be right next to the fabric. And when it is, just kind of gently hold it there with your fingers, and tighten this down. Do not over-tighten this, if you over-tighten it, you're gonna strip the screw. It should just be enough that it's in and give it one little last turn. Don't have your husband do it, because he'll probably over-tighten it, if he's like my husband. You can never have your screw down tight enough. And what happens is then I'm not able to undo it when I need to when he's not home. So, just tight enough. Alright. Now, until you're really sure about this process and you're really comfortable with it, I recommend going rather slowly. so as you stitch, if you notice that you're getting off a little bit, you may have to come back and adjust your position slightly. And I'm doing that at a four, I'm gonna take it down to a two to show you how much more often this is stitching. Now as you're sewing, you can actually come here and open it up and see how your stitches are doing. As you look here, you can probably see those are some fairly large bites that the needle is taking. So we may wanna back it off a little bit more and adjust where our needle is. And this is just something that takes a lot of practice and a little bit of patience. And that's also part of why I say, you're going to want to not have the needle take the bites as frequently. Once you get your setting dialed in, it will go much faster, but it does take awhile. And it's something that I would say, if you're using it on a regular basis, you're gonna become very proficient. If you're like me, and you don't use it that often, well, you just gonna have to play with it and work with it. So as you can see, these are a little bit better down here. This was where our needle was biting on a two. It's almost a straight stitch coming down there, that's just too much. So I highly recommend going with that number four setting, the furthest one out that you've got. Now, right now this looks horrible. It is blue thread on orange fabric though. So let's try it with a matching thread. And I think you'll see that it's not quite as horrendous. And depending on what you're using it for, if it's an heirloom garment, no, you're probably gonna wanna sew your hem by machine. But I can remember when I was a kid growing up, I liked to play marbles. And back then little girls wore dresses to school. And every day I would come home, and my hem would be torn out, because my hair would catch on it. And every day my dear mother had to sit down and hand sew my hem back in. And I felt, now I really feel sorry for the poor woman. I mean, at the time I didn't get it. But she would have killed for something like this. So, if you're doing it on kids' clothes or something that is not critical, boy, girl for it, I like to use my blind hemmer whenever I'm doing home dec type of work on curtains in particular. 'Cause there's an awful lot to hem, and I don't particularly like the look of a straight stitch, so I find that by using the blind hemmer, it looks really good. Now, the other thing is I'm doing this standing up, and typically I am sitting down. So I have a different angle while I'm doing this. So that's my excuse for it today. And we're actually gonna be doing another blind hem later in the program, so, maybe we'll see if I get any better. All right, so, let's take this off, and open it up. And yes, mine still needs a little more adjusting. But I think you can see, especially down here where the stitches are a little bit smaller where I was a little more accurate, that it just doesn't show up that much. And once you iron that, it will a lot better. You won't have the ridge there, it will lay nice and flat, just like it's doing here. You've got that nice flat line for your hem. So, that's the blind hemming foot. Give it a try. I think with a little bit of practice, even maybe a glass of wine to help you relax, you may be surprised. I find that these are the kinds of things to work on when you aren't in a rush, and when you aren't feeling pressured, when you just wanna go in and play, try something new. And before you try it on any project, no matter what the project is, always test it on a sample first of the actual fabric that you're using, and make sure that your settings are correct.