The decorator's best friend

As I finished our October decorating today, I decided I’d like two more fall dresser scarves, one for our antique secretary and another for our stemware rack. I had already made two small tablecloths and an occasional pillow case out of this fabric, so I knew I couldn’t have much more of it.

I wanted nothing fancy, just some pretty fabric instead of the doilies that are usually covering those furniture tops. When I looked through my very modest fabric stash, I found two pieces of this fabric. To my delight, they were just the right sizes for the surfaces I had in mind.

A few minutes with the White 534 serger and, voila!, I had my dresser scarves. Having this serger enables me to whip out decorative pieces in a short time without the trouble of hemming and I didn’t have to cut off that annoying white strip listing the manufacturer’s brand name. Lovely serger’s cutter nipped that ugly piece right off.

It’s hard to believe that I was afraid of that machine when I first inherited it from my mother. I knew I wanted the serger; I’d seen her work magic with it. My mother was an excellent seamstress, but I was just hoping to be able to make simple projects with this machine. However, looking at that tangle of threads was very intimidating. How did a person thread that thing?

I took along the serger on a business trip and attended “open sewing night” at a quilting shop I called upon. The ladies there instructed me in the machine’s use. That night I whipped out a table runner, a fall tablecloth and a bunch of napkins. I was delighted.

I still use my mother’s old Pfaff 1222 for regular sewing. I adore that old machine on which I learned to sew, but I would never want to be without that serger, either.