New Love of my life! 5 Thread Overlock

Meet the newest love of my life! my dream come true! 5 thread overlock machine, which will set me free and let me experiment with variety of fabrics from velvet to knit and give a professional finish that i'have yearned for over the years!

Hubby dearest gifted me this a week before my b'day and must say this is the best gift i have ever received!

Still learning the ropes of threading it, as much as i love it, i am pretty scared of it too, given the complexity of its mechanism and its sheer size and dimensions! 

Today, i sat and made a diagram for threading, i hope this will help me out when i end up with cut up threads or exhausted threads and have to re-thread. 

Went to Singer showroom where i asked for overlock which will sew the knit fabrics as well with perfect seam finish and overedges. They said they do not have such a thing in Singer India and suggested me to check 'Sagar Overseas Ltd' a multi-brand importer-dealer which is diagonally opposite church park school, AnnaSalai, Chennai.

Then i went to Usha showroom as well to check if they had any 5 thread overlock, they said they have one (2 sales people actually contradicted and added to the confusion) but they can't show me the demo and if i order they will get it for me, i was bit apprehensive as i had to see the demo to see if the machine actually works with all types of fabric. I asked for a catalogue atleast and they said they didn't have the brochure about that particular machine and will post it to me, if i get back to them and gave their card to me. 

Now i decided it was time to go Sagar and check them out. I was apprehensive to start with as i had not known this name related to machines, but my fears were thwarted the moment i reached the place, it must some 20 years old building and their name was engraved in concrete in the building, and i could see all brands of machines happily resting there, JUKI, brother, Guru overlock, their own brand of single lock, 3 thread overlock, cover stitch machines. I asked if they have 5 thread overlock, they said they import a model from china and are marketing it under their brand. I asked for them to sew up some fabric , they said tell me if you are going to buy then i shall open up the new machine and put up a demo of it, i replied saying how can i buy without seeing, he said, tell me what are your requirements and i will tell whether the machine will do it for you or not?! I said "5 thread overlock with safety seam stitch , it should be able to sew a variety of fabrics without changing the needle every time!"

He said "YES", if your requirements do not get met, i will not sell the machine to you! Asked me to get as many type of fabrics i wanted to test and gave me an hour to do so, meanwhile he can also set the machine up. I went to Thakurdas (near LIC) and got a change to hoard on some fabrics (will do a separate post on the fabrics! i know you get the point - that i did some SERIOUS shopping :) )

Came back to Sagar and they had by the time set up the machine and the technical mechanic guy Mr.Singaravelan was very helpful and explained to me very clearly and slowly and asked me to repeat every single thread's threading process. After about 45 minutes I had the first threading, lower loop thread which comes from back and it was time for lunch, so we decided to take a break. Had a sumptuous mini-lunch at Saravana Bhavan, Peters Road.

After lunch, we resumed the threading learning session, after the bottom loop thread, we came to the 4th & 5th thread which does the overlock zig-zag, and then on to the 2nd and 3rd spool thread which went to front and back needles respectively. By this time it was about 2.5 hours and time for tea and i was really exhausted! now comes the best part, to back it they have to take of the thread spool stand, which meant, cut off the threads and i would have to put new threads and connect them to strands of thread left over! He taught me that as well, still i had few doubts if i could really make it work !

We hired a tempo to transport the machine to our house with the stand. The machine operates on built in motor and is self-oiled about 1/2 litre oil was poured at the beginning once the machine is set up and it will stay for 6 months! Once i switch on the machine, i can feel the vibration on the table, motor is so powerful!

On reaching home, we were literally exhausted and decided to set it up after a break! BIG MISTAKE! after refreshing ourselves, came back to set up the machine and guess what to our dismay the machine did not rest properly on the table and was wobbly ! on little investigation we found out the bushes at bottom were not in place and to add to the misery one bush was missing! we called the tempo guy who had reached his home by then and asked for his help to search his tempo, he was a nice guy named Arul and searched and found the bush on his temp and asked us to collect it tomorrow! which we did the next day being a lazy Sunday  we went to 'Gopalpuram play ground' where the tempo guys plays every Sunday! to collect the 11/4 inch tall bush!

After coming back home, we immediately put the bush in place and now the machine sat steadily on the table. Tested a few scrap bits as well and it was sewing fine

Still have a few queries like how to take off the cutter if like to use the stitches in the middle of fabric and do not want it to be cut - this the technical guy told me he will explain, but at the end we forgot! Now i have to bug him again by calling him and asking for an appointment for a day!

how to make it work with differential feed - tech guy himself did not know it; the machine has a manual which is not that clear, will have to sit with it for a day or two and find out.

As of now i would like to work with the machine with edges and hems and master it first and then go onto other options (read meddling with the machine settings!)

Will keep posting my experiments soon!