Book Review – Children’s Clothing with a Lock Machine

So I finally bought my serger, so the first thing I needed was a book that would teach me how to sew with one. I wanted to get this book but it was out of stock in the bookshop.

So I bought the next best thing! A book on sewing with the ロックミシン – literally Lock Machine. It’s by Kurai Muki, and it covers making kids clothes using a serger.

Some of the clothes covered in this book. From Tops, bottoms, outerwear, dresses. For both boys and girls. There are 22 projects in all (not all are shown here)

Pajamas for kids.

Tank top + Boxer pants for the boy, Tank top and shorts for the girls.

Camisole dress – this dress uses the wave serger which is a wavy decorative stitch on the Babylock wave serger. Is Babylock the only serger with wave stitches?

Make a polo shirt!

Reversible parka and long sleeve t-shirt.

Parka with hood, and bell bottoms!

Reversible balloon skirt, although I don’t really like it on the reverse side. 😛

This looks like a dress that my kids will wear everyday! Balloon dress.

Formal dress. One thing great about sergers is its ability to create rolled hems and handle very thin fabric like this. So other than knit projects, this book also shows you how to make a nice formal dress using the serger.

Formal jacket for the boys.

This is why I bought the book. I think it would have been alot more useful if I’m using the same machine (hers is a babylock), as the dials and settings and different on mine. But basically the theory is the same. Changing stitch width or length, working with differential feed settings. (on another page not shown here).

How to sew around corners. Should have read this before I made the pile of hankies last week.

Most of the projects require either the serger alone or in combination with a sewing machine. The icons listed under the headings for each project will show you. The orange square indicates use of Lock machine (Serger), and the pink square indicates the need for a sewing machine.

ALL the projects come with step by step photographs!

This is why I love Kurai Muki’s books. Clear pictures. Not much translation needed.

She even has her own machine! If you look carefully below her logo, there is an embossed babylock logo below.

This book is great for both beginners and advanced users of overlockers. There are other books available in the LaLaLa series for Womens wear, Mens wear and babies. These books are not the latest publications, but have been around and reprinted many times because they are so useful. The book I just reviewed was first published in 2007, and was reprinted for the 7th time in 2010.

While searching for her LaLaLa series books, I came across this new book by Kurai Muki

Lock Machine Textbook. It was just released on 28th July but sadly not available here yet.! Will get this book next 🙂

Title : ロックミシンで子供服　(クライ。ムキの LaLaLa3)
ISBN : 978-4-529-04456-1
No. of pages : 66