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