Hi Donna,
RH > I was hemming some polyester dresses for the high school show choir,
RH > using a name brand cotton covered poly thread.  If I ran the machine all
RH > out, the thread would fray; I guess it was from the friction of going
 DL> Have had the same problem, and it took a while to figure out that I
I figured it out fast; I couldn't take too long because the dresses all
had to be hemmed within 48 hours.  I probably should have put a new
needle in too, but didn't.
RH > project.  I have one of these adapter things so I can use the coned
RH > threads with my sewing machine and found there's a bit of a difference
RH > in their quality too.
 DL> I have looked at cone thread, and often thought just from what I saw,
 DL> that I didn't think the quality was very good and have been afraid to
 DL> buy it.  May be a subconscious reason I haven't tried to get out a
 DL> serger I bought several years ago.  I don't want to have to mess with
 DL> thread problems.
The main thing about cone thread is, yes, it is thinner than the cotton
covered poly that most of us use on the sewing machine.  But, on a
serger, you use several threads, thus multiplying the strength.  On a
sewing machine, you just have 2 threads in (most of the time) a straight
line; the serger has the overlock in addition to the straight line (or
lines).  When I made Rachel's wedding gown I used a 4 thread stitch
since I was, for the most part, stitching thru 3 layers.  The dreses for
the wedding party were a thinner fabric and I only had to go thru 2
layers so I used a 3 thread stitch on the serger to join the layers (the
pattern had called for basting the 2 layers and treating them as one,
phuey on that) and then, as the wedding dress, machine sewed.  For the
wedding dress I used a cotton covered poly since it was a mix of natural
and synthetic fabrics; for the other dresses I used a good grade of poly
thread since they were all synthetic fabrics.  Overall, it worked very
well using a combination of the serger and sewing machine.
OTOH, a serger can be a temepramental beast with all the threads and
tensions.  You have to get it threaded in the right order and make sure
everything is balanced properly.  I got my serger in fall of 95 but
didn't use it much (played around, getting to know it) until fall of 96.
Then I used it for show choir dresses (for the high school) and Rachel's
wedding.  Believe me, it's one thing I wouldn't be without now!  Get to
know your serger; you will be surprised at how handy a machine it is
(and yes, you can disengage the upper knife if you want on most models).
Catch you later,
Ruth
Geoworks Ensemble & Professional Point - High performance on a budget!
hafflys@primenet.com    FIDO 1:309/63.2
... Some are so educated they can bore you on almost any subject
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