Sunday, October 17, 2010

Serger Pieced Frolic Top

I attended a Babylock demo recently and I know I've seen it before probably at my Bernina dealer Sew This - a serger created quilt top. So I had this pile of Moda Frolic line sitting around that I just had to have when I saw it at Denise's cute new quilt shop in New Orleans, Mes Ami Quilts. I decided I wanted to serge piece the top --- I know, not exactly a 1/4 inch but with this technique, it's all about speed but accuracy is still easily achieved as long as you take your time and don't rush it. I was able to whip this top and pieced backing together in an afternoon. I will let you know about the quilting --- I have a feeling it might be a little difficult with all that thread in there from the serger... we shall see.



photo

Frolic quilt top

Frolic quilt back

5 comments:

Lane said...

I want to serge a quilt made of homespuns. It's the best I can think of to hold all those loosely woven threads together in the seam allowance. Yours is great! Love all those fall colors. Lane

whimzeestitches said...

I should have taken a pic of the back of the quilt top to show how neat it looks - yeah, all those loose threads are nicely covered. I think a serger will do great for homespun!

Amy said...

Very cute pattern for a panel quilt. Good work!

Barb said...

What a fun quilt!!!

Paul said...

I serge a lot of charity quilt tops. The trick is to use the 4 thread stitch, which on my machine is 1/4", and increase the stitch size from 2.5 to 3.5 or 4.0. This causes far less thread buildup.

I haven't used the serger on triangles, but squares/rectangles and especially borders. I find the feed much better and even than my sewing machine, and you do get a great strong seam.

The other technique that you can use is to make the seams on the top of the quilt, not on the inside of the quilt. Because you encase the raw edges, you can use the seams to create texture on the quilt. Instead of quilting them down, or down all in 1 direction, you can put the seam right, then left, then right, and tack it down with the quilting stitches.

Also, you can use 4 nice colored threads for the 4 thread overlock. Thick threads if you want in the loopers. So as you have the seam left then right, you show different thread colors.

And after serging a bunch of tops, you quickly learn how to quickly unsew a serged seam.