Serging Heavy Fabrics

I've been making a lot of pullovers lately!  Love Notions has pullover/hoodies for the whole family and I've been using the patterns to make Christmas presents.  There's the Navigator for children, the Constellation for women and just recently, the North Star for men - something for everyone!

Most of my pullovers have been from the wonderful soft sweatshirt fleece from l'oiseau fabrics - they bring in their fabrics from Europe and the quality is amazing.  Plus they have just the best selection of ribbing anywhere!  The sweatshirt fleece combined with ribbing results in thicker fabric than I usually sew and needs techniques I don't usually use.

I'm one of those sit-down-and-sew people who don't think a lot about the finer points of sewing - I just want to get on with it!  While serging thicker seams with the sweatshirt fleece, I actually broke a few needles.  In fact, I got down to only one of the special needles my serger takes.  So off to the store I went and moaned to the gal behind the counter that it was probably time to get my serger serviced.  She asked what stitch length I had my serger set at. Uh, I dunno!  And what size needles was I using?  Uh....

So - okay - I guess I need to pay more attention to the fabric I'm serging and the needles and settings I should be using!  And now I'm going to pass along what I learned to you - although you probably already knew it!

The gal said - take a look at the seams on jeans.  They have longer stitches to go through the heavier fabric.  You need a longer stitch for the sweatshirt fleece.  She said to take it up to 4 which is the highest my serger (Baby Lock Imagine) will go.  This is where the stitch length dial is on my machine.

She said that if the fabric is having difficulty going through the serger and I'm needing to help it along, I need to lower the pressure on my presser foot.  On my serger the presser foot adjusting screw is on the top directly above the presser foot.  The manual will show where it is on yours and tell you how to adjust it.

And finally, she said I needed heavier needles.  I'm using 11 for most things, but when serging heavy sweatshirt fleece to use 14's.  These are the needles my serger takes - yours might be a different number.  Always use the needles recommended for your machine.

Serging went so much more easily after I followed her advice!  I guess I still have an awful lot to learn!

There are other things you can do to make serging heavy fabrics easier.  You can reduce the seam bulk.  When attaching cuffs or bands, I make sure that the seams are folded opposite each other.

Another little tip I learned while researching this subject is that if your fabrics are thick, you can cut a starter for your seam that will allow the fabric to feed more easily into your serger.  Cut a notch at the beginning, the width of your seam allowance.  Then, with the presser foot down, lift the nose and slide the fabric in with the cut edge against your serger's knife.

I certainly know a lot more than I did when I started sewing these wonderful pullovers and now am ready to serge with more confidence.

If you don't already have the Love Notions Pullover/Hoodie family, you can get the patterns through my affiliate links below

Love Notions North Star Hoodie & Pullover for men
Love Notions Constellation Hoodie & Pullover for women
Love Notions Navigator Pullover 2T-16 for children

Making Your Own Bias Tape

Pattern - Love Notions Pullover and Hoodie for Men
Skill Level - Confident Beginner
Fabric - Brushed sweatshirt fleece and ribbing from l'oiseau fabrics
Skills - Making your own bias tape

Love Notions' newest addition is the North Star Pullover and Hoodie for men.  Now you can make this great pullover for the whole family!  Collar style or hoodie - the guys are going to love it!  The details really make it and the bias binding for the neck is so easy and gives you a professional finish to be proud of.  In fact, you'll want to make it stand out and you can do that by making your own bias binding.  And once you find out how easy it is to make your own bias binding, you may never buy it again!

Did you realize you can make a huge amount of bias binding from a 12" square?

Since the North Star (and the Constellation for women and the Navigator for children) calls for 1/2" double fold bias binding I used my 25mm tape maker.  Click on any picture to see it more clearly.

So I started by cutting a 12" square of my fabric - in this case it was a beautiful rayon that worked with the heathered burgundy sweatshirt fleece and black accent materials from l'oiseau fabrics.

Next, slice diagonally through the square from one corner to the opposite one.

Mark the centre opposite of each triangle with a pin - as I have in the picture

Now match the pins and your fabric pieces will look like this.

Pin those sides together, take it to your sewing machine, stitch with a 1/4" seam and press it open.

Back to the cutting mat because I like the grid lines to make sure my top and bottom are parallel.  I draw - with a pen - lines every 2".  The pen doesn't matter, because eventually I'll be using that as my cutting guide.

Now the tricky part!  Bring the short sides together to match lines creating a tube, but offset the lines by one strip so that you have a 2" strip overhanging on each side.  Initially this was a little awkward for me, but I eventually mastered it.

Once you've pinned your lines together, stitch along the edge with a 1/4" seam and press it open.

Now you're ready to cut along the lines with your scissors to get the 2" strip.

Time to bring the bias tape maker into play!  Feed the pointed end of the strip into your 25mm tape maker with the right side to the back - you can use a pin to help it through.  It's quite magical how the tape is folded as you pull it out!  Press the folded tape with your iron while gently pulling back with the tape maker.  Be careful to hold the tape maker by the handle so you don't get steam burns!

Once you've run the strip through the tape maker, you can now fold this in half and press it to get your 1/2" double folded bias tape.  My 12" square of fabric gave me 66" of tape - more than enough for the neckline of the North Star and a nice little bit left for another project!

I store my tape on cardboard rolls and secure them with a pin.  I have a whole drawer full of beautiful bias tape.  You can use this same method for other size tape makers - cut:

• 1.25" for a 12mm maker to get 1/4" double fold tape
• 1.5" for an 18mm maker to get 3/8" double fold tape - and of course
• 2" for a 25mm maker to get 1/2" double fold tape

Here are a few more examples of how I used bias tape in the necks of this pullover. This was cotton batik on a test muslin.

And this was the neck binding for a hooded version.

And tiny pink roses for this burgundy and black hoodie.

And don't forget plain quilting cotton - but you can still make a statement with it!

Now that you know how to make your own bias tape, you're ready to dress up those neck seams of your pullovers and make them pop!

And if you don't already have this amazing pattern - or the other members of its family - you can get them from my affiliate links below.

Love Notions North Star Pullover and Hoodie for men
Love Notions Constellation Pullover and Hoodie for women
Love Notions Navigator Pullover and Hoodie for children