Help me with this darn serger!

[Red]

Hi,

I just got a serger and I've been trying to make cloth menstrual pads. I've made pads before, but haven't serged. It has a differential feed to eliminate wavy seams, and I've turned that knob all over the place, but the seams are still very wavy.

Also, I'm using all prupose thread. Is that why my stitches are leaving loops at the edge of the fabric?

Hope someone has a clue!

[Dovie]

To help decrease the amount of waviness you need to increase the differential feed this helps decrease the stretch on the fabric. If you find yourself really pulling on the fabric (like when you are trying to do curves and corners) this can make it wavy too. That will improve with practice. Take it slow, turn up the differential feed and see what happens.

The loops on the side could be one or a combination of several things:
1. Fabric is shifting and moving towards the needles after it is cut so that it is not staying where it is supposed to. Watch the fabric to see if this is the case.
2. Your cutting blade is not in the right place so it is cutting the fabric too short. (Some machines have an adjustable blade position, some don't. If yours does adjust it so it is cutting wider.)
3. The looper tensions are too loose. Try increasing the tension on the upper an lower loopers to try to get the loops to meet right at the edge of the fabric.

Play with these adjustments on straight seams preferably using scraps of the same fabric and number of layers as what you are wanting to sew. HTH. Good luck. You will love your serger!