Overlocker / Serger machine review part 1.

**UPDATE**  You can find part 2 of this review here.

Some birthday money, some savings, a lack of restraint, and hours upon hours of poring over machine reviews and your suggestions have amounted to me obtaining my first overlocker machine.  This is the first time I've taken her out of her box so I thought I would blog about the occasion.  I'm going to do this review in 2 or 3 parts because compared to traditional sewing machines I know zip about overlockers so I'll to have learn before I blog.

First I'll tell you where I got it:  I purchased it online from Sewing Machines Direct and spoke to a very nice chap called Russell who was friendly and helpful. His shop (and I looked at LOADS of other shops and a couple where down-right unfriendly!) was offering the best price and his freebies were very generous too ...

So thrown in with the machine is a Babylock waste catcher, 50 spools of thread, needles, tape measure, stitch ripper (you can never have too  many of those), 6 pairs of scissors (which are razor sharp), and best of all; 5 Babylock brand machine feet: 2 x piping feet, 1x shirring foot, 1x blind hem foot, and an elastic foot.  This was the best freebie pack that I found in the UK.

"Hello Darling, I've been waiting for you!"  This is the Babylock Imagine Wave out of her box.  My heart was beating rather too fast as I gave Russell my card details and before during and after putting the phone down I felt immensely guilty.  So I'm going to do what I can to purge that guilt by making good use of her.  Oh well! :)

I chose this particular machine because several of you actually recommended it to me (thanks for your helpful comments) and someone I know has one so I bent her ear about it at great length.  I was told about several things that I should consider before taking the plunge:

• Threading an overlocker can be a right pain in the... Babylock machines have an auto threading system which uses air jets.  Can't wait to see that in action.
• Getting the tension right on overlocker can also be a pain in the...  The Babylock Imagine (and all models above) has auto tension, so no twiddling knobs and looking at the manual when you change different types of fabrics, you just change fabric and sew.
• I eventually want sew Coverstitch (which is the professional looking stitch that usually appears about 1" up from the bottom hem on jersey fabric t-shirts, skirts, and hoodies etc.)  You can buy overlockers which have also have Coverstitch, or you can buy a separate Coverstitch machine. After reading lots of reviews I learnt that lots of folks prefer to have 2 separate machines one for overlocking and another one for coverstitching because that way you don't have to change the needles and the threads for the 2 different stitches.  Folks who had one machine to do both stitches often reported that they actually used their machine less because they didn't like re-threading for the different jobs.  So if all goes well I'll maybe get a separate coverstitch machine much later.

Front panel pulled down.  Gosh that all looks quite scary.

Side panel pulled away. Looks even more scary!



Side spool holder pulled away to reveal a storage for tools and notions.

More notions: including screw driver, spool caps, spool nets and a soft machine dust cover (which to be honest) is flimsy and crap.  One of the first things I will be making with this machine is an oilcloth dust cover...

Easy reference guide.  I can see that I'm going to be making a LOT of use of this!

So at first glance the manual looks looks well written with a good smattering of diagrams and photos.  I haven't delved into it deeply yet so I can't comment on it too much.  I'll let you know later.  Meanwhile I can show you a few of the pages (you might have guessed by now that I'm a bit uptight about manuals...).

OK so next time I'll maybe have some sewing to show you and I'll be able to talk about about how it was to thread and sew with for the first time.  Perhaps I'll throw caution (and sanity) to the wind and attempt these pretty tops...umm maybe.

Psst..."walk before you can run". 

**UPDATE**  You can find part 2 of this review here.