Tales of Woe in Serger Land

Okay, I am officially a serger loser. Let me just say that trying to figure out how this thing works is akin to taking 10th grade algebra for the third time in senior year. (My dirty little secret is out!)

Feeling good about getting the whole house cleaned, a batch of yummy sugar cookies mixed up and settled in for the overnight in the fridge, a pot of vegetable soup and fresh bread from the day before for lunch, I finally pulled out my serger Sunday afternoon and vowed that I was finally going to take that baby for a spin, come Hell or highwater.

Well...needless to say, with Satan himself looking over my shoulder, savoring a virtual symphony of 4-letter words spewing from my mouth, I was cursed from the proverbial 'get go'.

We're not talking dimestore serger, thread your loopers yourself here, we're talking Babylock Imagine...Jet Air looper threading at the push of a button....WHOOSH!.

Okay, while I had the looper threading down, I am far from threading the needles correctly. Sewing results in a nice straight line stitch on one side and a mess of unsecured loops that pull right out of the bottom. All I know is that I do not know how to thread this machine, and I'm not exactly thrilled at the prospect of watching the VHS video that came with it. (I tried that once, and the woman in the video is the Mr. Rogers of serging---can you say 'suicidal' boys and girls? Just the sound of her voice and the slowness of the words made me want to hop in the car and head on down to the Shady Grove Metro station to throw myself on the third rail.)

Anyway, I even looked at signing up for a class (my husband's suggestion), but the nearest Babylock dealer is at least an hour's drive, and I just don't want to learn this machine badly enough to spend a couple hours every Saturday driving to and from a class.

Everyone said, 'oh, don't sell it on eBay, try it out first, you'll love it, you'll kick yourself for not using it all these years'. (I've had it for 5 years, unused, in a case under one of my work tables). Sorry, I tried.

I've got my eye on a current eBay auction for this machine, and I think I may just find myself with $800 to burn and a little more leg room under the work table come the end of next week.

I can do a lot of things, but apparently serging is not meant to be one of them. (I suppose as long as I'm on eBay, I may as well list the stripper pole too.)