It has been awhile since I last updated, hasn't it? I've been busy with some translations in the last couple of weeks and haven't had as much time for sewing. However, I was still able to fit in a few hours to finish the tank top and shorts set that I've been working on! I used Simplicity pattern 2317 (for people who have similar measurements to me and are interested in making the same garments, I should mention that I had to make a lot of adjustments to the base pattern to make it fit right).
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| The finished tank top and shorts set. |
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| A close-up of the shorts. |
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| I used an overlock machine/serger to finish the hem on the shorts. |
As I mentioned in a previous post, my husband got me an overlock machine/serger for my birthday. I am now the proud owner of a Brother 1034D. It was very easy to learn how to use it, and the machine comes with a useful manual and some how-to videos that you can watch on your computer. The narration for the videos has a forced "cheery" feel to it, which I found unpleasant, but overall the videos were worth watching, as they explain various techniques, including blind hem, rolled edge, gathering, and making spaghetti straps, etc.
Before I had my nifty serger, I had to zigzag any edges that would be exposed in the finished garment before sewing the seams. The serger sews the seam (the 4-thread setting even sews a reinforcing line), snips off extra fabric, and finishes the seam beautifully all in one pass-through, and at an impressive speed-- noticeably faster than the sewing machine.
Of course, the sewing machine is still essential, but I definitely found that the Brother 1034D cut down on my garment construction time.
Making the shorts was a good learning experience. I tried hemming with the serger for the first time. You can see the shorts here:
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| An "action shot" of the shorts. |
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With flash.
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Sewing machine settings were the same as the ones I used for the tank top: I stuck with the 90/14 HG-4BR (Organ) ball point needle, and for all straight-line sewing I used the stretch stitch (#02) with the standard presser foot, changing the stitch length to the maximum.
Serger settings: standard 4-thread overlock on exposed seams (except the hem). All thread tensions were set to 4, and the differential feed was set to 1.5 to accommodate the stretchy knit fabric. The stitch length and width were set to the default. I didn't have extra ball point needles, but it probably would have been a good idea to replace both needles with ball point needles.
For the hem, I used the blind hem presser foot. The blind hem is a 3-thread stitch, so I removed the right needle. I also adjusted the tension dials to 3-0-6-3. (The left needle tension is lowered, the upper looper tension is raised, and the lower looper tension is lowered.) At first I followed the recommendations in the manual for the left needle tension (in between 0 and 2), but it wasn't working very well for me. I found that raising the needle tension to 3 really helped resolve the problems I was having. I left the differential feed, stitch length, and stitch width settings the way they were. The higher needle tension resulted in there being a line visible on the outside (the "right" side) of the garment, but I actually liked the way this looked and decided to stick with it.
Finally, I wasn't fully satisfied with the way the tank top was fitting, so I made some more alterations. The straps were way too loose. (This was also contributing to the armholes appearing too large.) I used my seam ripper to open up the seams where I had sewed the back to the front, and cut off 1.25 inches off of each of the 4 ends. (2.5 inches on each side total!) After making this adjustment the tank top finally fit right.
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| This is the whole outfit. |
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| The back of the outfit. |
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| Side view. |
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