Sewing Serger Set Up - Janome 234D

The serger I bought from my niece is a Janome 234D.  It came out in the early 1990's.  This one has had a good service.  I did find a free download of the manual. 

It had been threaded with Wooly Nylon and when it was serviced the technician put regular serger thread in the needles.  Once the service was complete they just cut the threads so I had to work out how to proceed. So, I purchased 2 cones of serger/overlock thread from Walmart as it seemed the smoothest of the ones I checked out. I chose grey because I am very happy with using grey on my recent shopping bags.  Seems to got with lots of colors.  Now I could move forward.

I was going to put the Serger on the shelving unit in the sewing corner but that did not work.

The shelf was not deep enough or tall enough. 

So I had to come up with a new plan.  

I moved some of the boxes and stacked them high again so I could gain some floor space.

With that done, I needed a sturdy piece of furniture to hold it.

I chose one of the end tables from the living room as a TV table with hold a tea mug and lamp but not a serger.

That took a while to sort out.

The foot pedal was next. I had placed it in a plastic bag as it was leaving black stuff behind where ever I put it down.

Upon inspection,  the old gripper material on the bottom of the pedal which just disintegrating upon contact. I rubbed it all off.

I have some gripper material from Ikea - STOPP which I had leftovers off after putting it under my rug in the kitchen.  I cut it to size and decided to use Glue Dots to attach it to the bottom on the pedal.  

We will see how it goes.

I chose to put an old linen tablecloth on my end table to keep it clean and hopefully unmarred until it can be returned to the living room.

The table is squeezed between the sewing desk on the right and the packed boxes on the left.  I had added an extension cord to the outlet now behind the boxes. Nice planning ahead.

Now I had a space and power.

I was advised by my sister who own sergers that tying the new thread to the old one makes getting the thread through the machine very easy.

You can see that I tied beautiful square knots to the ends that were left by the technician and the grey spools now sitting on the spool holders on the left hand side. 

I then put the knife away so that I could concentrate on the thread. I ran the machine until the knots appeared just ahead of the needle. I cut them off there.  

Now I had to thread both needles. The manual suggests a needle threader but you really can't get your hands back there to do that.  I got my magnifying glass out and did it the old fashioned way.

Here's my first seam with the light over locking loops of the light wooly nylon thread. The other wooly nylon is grey as well.

I think the 2 grey lines close together at the needle threads.

Everything looks good.

There is still room for me to set up my craft table which I use for cutting and layout.

The machine is up and running so I can get started on those projects.

1. ReUseable Make Up Remover pads.

2. Bags with drawstrings to laundry these remover pads.

3.Who Knows What!

Very exciting.

I probably need to sew a cover for it so that it stays dust free when not in use.  I did want it set up all the time otherwise I would not be inclined to use it as often.