My mom probably won’t be happy that I didn’t at least clean up around her machines before taking pictures. Hehehehe… She looks at the backgrounds of pictures before looking at the focal point. Oh well, deal with it, Babe!

These are her sergers. Yes, she has two. Actually, at one point I think that she might have had three (or maybe she still does! One never can tell where she is hiding them), but she gave me the first serger that she bought.

This is the Janome My Lock serger machine. This is the newest version of the My Lock that my mom gave to me. It’s just a basic machine, nothing fancy, and it does everything that you would want a serger to do. It’s just not as fancy as the Janome serger on the right in my mom’s sewing room.

Typically I use my serger to finish off the edges of my cross stitch projects to keep them from unraveling. In this picture you can see that I actually serged the edges of the fabric that I use to protect my cross stitch from the plastic frame of my Q-Snaps. A serger creates an overlocking stitch that really just finishes off edges nicely. Or so that’s what I thought the main use was for a serger.

While perusing the various sewing classes offered on Craftsy, I came across one for Beginner Serging. Now, theoretically if I wanted to learn how to serge I have the best resource at my disposal: my mom. The problem is that I somehow manage to keep myself insanely busy, so running up to her house and spending time with her in the sewing room isn’t always practical. What I love about the classes on Craftsy is that I can watch them whenever it fits into my schedule. I might only have thirty minutes, but I can watch at least one lesson. The other day I received an email notice that a handful of Craftsy classes were going on sale for $14.99 and this was one of them! The full price of this class is $49.99, so I snatched it up as quickly as I could.

I watched the first two lessons last night before going to bed. It was a bit boring, but yet fascinating. I learned more about my serger in those first two lessons than I had in the entire time of knowing what a serger machine looks like! The problem is that the instructor uses a fancy Bernina that costs almost three times as much as mine, so it has a lot of really nice features that I’ve been drooling over. It’s okay, though. I don’t plan on going into business with my serger so the My Lock works for my purposes. I just have to get to know it a bit better.

The really nice thing about the instructor is that she realizes that you aren’t going to have the same exact machine as she is using. To make it easier for you she tries to generalize everything. So instead of telling you to make sure your tension is on ‘4’ she will say to make sure that your tension is on a medium setting that works well for your machine. Also, when going through the different parts of the machine not only did she have her Bernina there to show you, but she also had a Janome and a Brother as well.

The Craftsy class was definitely worth the money spent on it, but I learned a lesson last night: Do NOT watch a Craftsy class right before going to bed. Most of my dreams last night involved either sewing, looking through fabric, quilting (which I don’t even do!) or trying to clean my serger. It was an exhausting night! Sprinkle that all in with also trying to practice for church choir and I had a very busy night in my dreams!