Overlocker for Beginners—The Essential Overlock Stitch

Hello again, buddies! It’s time to talk about stitching now that our overlockers are ready to use and set up from our previous post. On a serger, you can make 16 different types of stitches, and there are a few ways that they differ from stitches made on a regular machine. The most crucial parameters are a few straightforward ones, including thread tension.

The tension dial on their sewing machine is feared by many people. The fear of throwing the machine’s tension out of balance and being powerless to correct it is widespread. But what really sets an overlock Machines apart is the flexibility it offers—changing these settings is how so many gorgeous stitches can be made!

Let’s begin with the overlock stitch, the most crucial of these stitches and the one that lends this machine its name. This stitch is generally what comes to mind when we think of a serged seam. It can be stitched in many different ways, but it usually serves to finish the fabric’s rough edges while stitching a seam.

Formation of Stitches

When a needle (or two needles) sews a seam through fabric, a knife blade cuts the cloth, and a looper thread (or looper threads) wraps the unfinished, clean edge, an overlock stitch is created.

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The number of threads

As I indicated, there are three alternative ways to sew this stitch: utilising four, three, or even only two threads. The main distinction in this case is toughness.

A 4-thread overlock stitch is created by using two needle threads to stitch your cloth in two rows, with the looper threads wrapping the edge. This stitch works best on materials that are medium to heavy weight or on seams that experience some stress, such those on tailored clothing. The 4-thread overlock is your best option when flexibility and durability are both required in a seam.

The 3-thread overlock stitch is a fantastic option for lightweight fabrics or easy edge finishing. The left or right needle is the only one used in the stitch. Although this stitch is robust and has a good deal of give for stretchy fabrics, it loses strength due to the use of only one needle and its consequently smaller mass. This stitch has the added benefit of being able to sew a blind hem, hemming and finishing the raw edge at the same time.

The last type of overlock stitch, a 2-thread overlock, is the least frequently used. Although this stitch will neatly cover raw edges (and looks especially lovely on light or fragile materials), it isn’t robust enough to be used for actual seaming. Additionally, the top looper converter, a little component kept in the looper door, is needed for this stitch. This stitch probably won’t be one you use as frequently because of its narrow use case and an additional setup procedure.

Uses for Overlock Stitching

No matter how many threads you use, an overlock stitch is excellent for building and general edge finishing. This stitch can be combined with your home sewing machine to entirely construct a garment and finish the edges at the same time. In order to reduce bulk, some materials or seams benefit from being pushed open after sewing. The best option in these circumstances might be to overlock raw edges before construction.

Some patterns may call for greater attention to fit and detail, in which case you might choose to bast seams before committing to a specific fit. In these situations, you might prefer to construct on the sewing machine before overlocking the edges.

It all comes down to preparation: how confident and at ease are you with the fit and pattern? Have you thought about the building process and what seams might benefit from edge-finishing before construction? How comfortable are you using your overlocker exclusively throughout the process? These questions have no right or wrong answers. The solutions might alter as your abilities advance!

Making the Ideal Stitch

Because an overlock stitch is the most often used stitch on our serger Machines (independent of the number of threads used), the default settings for this stitch are denoted on your machine with a little dot. On the BERNINA L 450 and 460 Overlockers, there is a dot next to the number four on the tension dials.

The same holds true for cutting width, differential feed, and stitch length. You should get a strong overlock stitch if you leave all of your parameters at the recommended number, or “default.”

Similar to your home machine, you can discover that the default setting isn’t always the best for the fabric or thread you’ve chosen. You might not know what that looks like to a novice serger!

I advise threading the machine with coloured threads that match the identified paths on the machine: upper looper is blue, lower looper is red, left needle is yellow, and right needle is green. This will help you learn the machine and how to fine-tune these stitches. Potential stitch issues will be simpler to identify if you can tell where each thread is coming from.

The edges of the fabric should be where your looper threads perfectly meet. This is probably the first sign that something is wrong with your tensions. Adjust the tension on these threads appropriately to balance things out if you see that the lower looper thread is being dragged to the front or the upper looper thread is being pulled to the back.

There are several ways to detect problems with needle threads. Your needle threads are usually too tight if looper threads are visible from the front side at the place where the needle is piercing through the fabric. You can see little red spots on this sample where our lower looper thread is being pulled too tightly.

On the other hand, if your needle tensions are too loose, those threads won’t look like a neat, straight line of stitching anymore. The needle threads will be drawn toward the seam allowance, which is visible on both the front and back of the cloth, by the looper threads.