My First Time Serging

My husband surprised me with a serger as a gift for our first anniversary (what a GUY!)! I know what you may be thinking, the first anniversary is supposed to be paper but believe me I'll take this any day! My serger is a Brother 1034D Overlock and had been sitting in my amazon wishlist for "some day". So happy that day has come! It can do 3 and 4 thread overlock stitches as well as gathers/ruffles, blind hem and a rolled hem. So far I've tried out the 4 thread overlock in my project and the gather setting on some scraps just to try it. My husband gets a kick out of asking what else it can do because I turn into a child with a brand new toy and spout off all kinds of great features. He also has spotted my looking at the insides of all my clothes as I wear them to see what stitches it has inside it. :-D

Above is the t-shirt I made this weekend. The pattern is from the Sew U knits book which includes 3 Simplicity "Build by Wendy" patterns. The basic pattern is a size large crew neck t-shirt but she gives you directions on how to make changes into many other types of tops from that pattern so I made the scoop neck. My scoop turned out a little scoopier than I planned so I wear a tank under it. I think next time I would make the v-neck instead. Other than that I like it. Oh, I also cut the sleeves with the hem line on a fold so that the sleeve is actually 2 complete layers. This trick was used in another simplicity dress pattern I have used and I liked it. It does use more fabric obviously but I like the 2 layers of fabric personally. So the seams are done using the 4 thread overlock and I applied the neck edge with that and then used my sewing machine to topstitch with a twin needle. I made the binding longer than I should have though and the neck line gapes a little. Lesson learned. All in all I am very happy with my first serged item. I even wore it to work today! :-D