Fixing Ratty Towels

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ironrite

Well-known member
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Sep 5, 2004
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Recently there was a thread on towels. I like the big bath sheet type towels. Almost 10 years ago I received 7 Ralph Lauren ones for Christmas. Finally they started to wear along the edges. Of course no self respecting housewife would put these out on the line to dry. What would the neighbors think!

Of course you can just use them for the car, but the body of the towel is still fine. So here is an easy fix if you have a serger or know someone that has one.

What is a serger? It's not a sewing machine. The serger finishes off seams and uses multiple cones of thread depending on the make to make its various stitches.

The first photo shows the ratty towel edge.

ironrite++6-18-2010-14-06-34.jpg
 
Extra Woolly Nylon

As a comparison the thread to the left in the picture is regular serger thread. The extra woolly nylon is to the right. When the woolly goes through the serger it will stretch out and then relax once it is in the seam to fill in any gaps in the stitches.

ironrite++6-18-2010-14-09-8.jpg
 
Threading the Serger

I am using what is called a wrapped edge. Two of the serger needles are threaded with regular thread and the woolly nylon goes in the lower looper. My serger is computerized, so it sets itself to the correct tensions and tells me how to set the other adjustments. You can do this stitch with a basic three thread serger as well. You may need to adjust your settings to get a nice stitch

Sergers use a combination of needles, and upper looper and lower looper to form the stitch. Some have another looper that is used to form a chain stitch.

ironrite++6-18-2010-14-12-45.jpg
 
Serging Away

Just about done with the towel. You can start to see the new finished edge toward the back of the foot. The serger cuts off the old frayed edge then passes the towel under the needles and the looper. With terry cloth it is a very messy proccess.

ironrite++6-18-2010-14-14-52.jpg
 
Finally Done

Here is the new finished edge. You can get thread is most colors to match your towels or you can use contrasting thread.

Once the edge is finished I use a product called Fray Block on the just the two ends of the edge. Check your local craft or sewing store. It looks and smells like model car cement. And that is what it does, it seals the raw edge and prevents fraying of the threads. Does it hold up? Yes, I did my other six towels last Summer and they still look great. I run my whites with bleach through the sanitary cycle on the Samsung.

I thought I'd share the process. Sergers can go from a few hundred dollars up into the thousands. However, you may find one at a garage sale or thrift store and if it is cheap enough and works give this project a try.

Sergers typically use larger cones of thread and the woolly nylon can be found at larger fabric stores.

ironrite++6-18-2010-14-20-56.jpg
 
what a great solution!

Can I send you a couple of our towels for fixing? LOL

Do you think I'd be able to do a similar fix with a good sewing machine?

Thanks for the tutorial.
 
I did that to my towels a few weeks ago before I switched over to the direct drive washer. I didn't want anyone saying that the washer was ruining my fabrics.
 
To do this on a sewing machine you could try to use a double needle and possibly with some type of edge stitch it may work. The big problem would be getting the woolly to feed through your bobbin case. The serger, with its two loopers can handle odd sizes and type of thread like the woolly, pearl cotton, metalics and even ribbon. The loopers come under and over the edge of the fabic and this is what finishes it off to prevent fraying.

Greg, you will have the serger packed away! Sure bring it on out here. Anytime you guys may be out Las Vegas way, let me know. When I got the new Babylock machine I had the chance to get a Bernina. Though nothing sews like a Bernina, the Babylock has the edge in embroidery.

When my niece was about 4, she did some drawings for me. I saved them and I digitized this one of the rabbit. She is now 33 and has two little ones of her own. For her recent birthday, I stitched out some shirts for her and her kids. She didn't remember doing the drawing, but her kids loved the shirts. The stitches were done to look like a kid's crayon scribbles.

ironrite++6-18-2010-17-30-16.jpg
 
Beautiful job! I love my serger too. Rolled hem with wooly nylon has always been my fav stitch, napkins and tablecloths are a breeze. I've also done edges like this on a sewing machine with an overlock stitch, foot and perle cotton riding along the edge, to add strength.
 
Frequently,

You can pick up a decent (rarely, though, top of the line) Serger/Overlocker at garage sales because the owner couldn't figure out how to thread it.
No kidding.
Thanks for sharing, that towel looks perfect.
 
Looks like a lot of thread.

Another way is to use bias tape (double fold, all cotton) all along the edge.

I made do wit my towels by using a zig-sag stitch along the frayed edge. Cut off any threads that escaped the zig-zag. It's not perfect but it seems to have stopped the fraying.

Since my towels are all cotton I try to use only all-cotton thread on them. It's a bit harder to find than it was, say, 40 years ago!
 
I'm using an Elna 945, it can use up to five threads, depending what stitch is selected. It can do the chainstitch as well as coverstitch. Chainstich is what you find sometimes on dog food bags. Pull one thread and the whole thing unravels. The coverstitch is usually what is found around the botton of tee shirts and pull overs. Sewing machines can duplicate this by using a twin needle.

It may seem like a lot of thread, however the regular serger thread can be found for around $2-3 per cone. The speciality threads can cost more. Depending on the stitch, the cones last for a long time.

Keven, you are correct! Most sergers are a pain to thread, if you do not thread it in the correct order, upper looper, lower looper, right needle, left needle, it will not work. Then you have to start all over. Which is why you can find them cheap. I use a dental floss threader, found at local drugstores to help with the threading. Babylock brand sergers use was is called air jet threading. They use a vacuum system to pump the looper threads through the machine. No fussing with loopers, but the machines are spendy.

I would say once the machine is threaded, about 5 minutes to thread and test out the stitch, it probably took about another 2-3 minutes to finish the towel.

Binding can work as well and would make a nice finish. Most of the binding tape I can get here though is polyester and feels rather harsh. Cotton binding would be the way to go.

ironrite++6-19-2010-08-05-49.jpg
 
I think I have the same towel...

and it's doing the same thing. Most of my machines are from the 19th century though. If you only have a straight stitch, you can sometimes sew many lines back and forth, and then side to side, and it's nearly like creating a new warp and weft in the cloth. Also, you can sew a small dart to take up the frayed area. I did that to my bedsheets when Dave's old A208 put a couple of holes in my brand new sheets. One newer machines, as mentioned you can use a zig-zag stitch, but setting it to the smallest stitch will leave a nice tight clean edge that you can trim against.
 
Correction: I consulted my Brother sewing machine manual and the stitch I used to rehabilitate frayed towel edges was an overcasting stitch. Basically it's a zigzag stitch with a straight stitch on one side. It seems to be working well enough, in that it's stopped the fraying.
 
Have An Older Bernia Five Thread Serger

That one almost threw clear across the room at a wall. Took that long to get the threading correct I was so angry,after over five or so hours *finally* got the thing threaded, and now will only do work that requires five threads. You aren't going to get me to go through that again. The manual suggested using different coloured threads for each so as to make threading easier at first, so I did. Regardless of what colour fabric is, it is going to get those same colours! *LOL*

One tip picked up from a sewing newsgroup I belong to, is that one shouldn't unthread a serger when changing thread colours. Clip the thread near the cone, tie (tightly with the smallest knot), new colour thread, then go to the needle end and gently start pulling the new colour thread though as to thread. If done carefully (pray, pray, pray), nothing will catch or break, and you'll avoid having to manually rethread the machine.

Both my vintage Elna "Supermatic" and Pfaff 1200 series will do "over cast" stitches, indeed the Pfaff has a special foot for the job, but unlike serger neither can cut and trim while sewing the edge the way my five thread serger can. Also using the elastic foot on my serger can do an elastic edge (as when making ironing board covers), whilst trimming off the excess/frayed edges.

Sergers are great for running up lots of laundry bags. No pattern really required, no pinking of edges, and so forth.
 
Frayed Edges and Machine "Zig-Zag" Stitches

Are a based upon the old method of darning by hand, where one would simply weave darn back and forth over a tear/fray catching up the loose threads and closing the damage.

Machine Darning:

Can do both "free style" (drop feed dogs on my Pfaff, cover feed plates on my Elna), and also the Elna has a stitch disc for darning. However find machine darning rather "hard" and inflexible when compared to work by hand.

True hand darning or "reweaving" recreates as best one's skill allows the pattern missing from the cloth or knitted goods. Lock stitch sewing machines do not form stitches this way thus what one gets is a series of inter-locked back and forth stitches. While the hole is covered/damaged repaired, it rarely answers for the same softness and such from handwork.

Also have tons of vintage darning cotton, none of which will work in a sewing machine, I've tried. Like to use darning cotton because it is multi-strands (can use one or more depending upon the fabric one needs to mend), and is very soft. The vintage French daring cotton I have from DMC has a very high luster, it is meant for mending fine damask and linen.
 
I had a serger that I used once...

My friend's mom gave it to me, NIB, and I was going to use it to make simple tablecloths for the museum I worked for. They needed them for some of the art programs for the Girl Scouts. I finally got the thing threaded, and sewed partway through one tablecloth and the thread broke. That was the last time I was able to get it to work.

Now, that friend is moving and her mom just gave me her NIB embroidery machine. All of my old machines have instruction manuals that are maybe 4x6" tops, and 3/16"-1x4" thick, and it covers everything including attachments. This thing came with two 2" binders and a video. So the machine will thread itself, but unless it's gonna sew everything for me, I'm probably screwed. I wish they made a cast iron, all mechanical embroidery machine!
 
Ah Launderess, yes, the joys of a serger and inventing new languages to go with them. Much as I love the Elna, it is no different. You have to thread it carefully and if you don't it is nothing but trouble! For me, I forget to raise the foot, thus releasing the tensioning discs for the thread. Think of two pie tins that come together to apply tension to the thread. If you don't the thread rides over the discs and you have a mess. On sergers this can be harder to see than regular sewing machines and you have to feel the thread lock into tension as you thread it.

The dental floss threaders are just little plastic loops that you can feed your thread into the looped end and then use the single end to feed it through the loopers. A pack of them is very cheap at the local drug store. These are helpful with thicker threads.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of working on the Babylock Evolution, an 8 thread machine, with the airjet threading and they are a dream. Very, very easy to thread, and should you make a mistake in the settings, and I did, very forgiving. The price, expensive. However if you did a lot of serger work, this would be the machine. I put the link to be below. For now, the Elna will work for me, but I'm saving my dollars for the new one.

Wesley, what brand of embroidery machine did you get? And yes, a lot of the newer sewing machines have some sort of automatic threading. Embroidery isn't terribly difficult, just make sure to have the correct stablizers and thread to do it. Feel free to email me if you'd like.

http://babylock.com/sergers/evolution/
 
Cast Iron Embroidery Machine

Well they are out there, but not what you think.

Have an old and apparently highly collectible book from Singer The Art of Embroidery and Lace Making) that teaches how to do all sorts of embroidery and lace making via machine. Granted from the era this book was printed the "machines" would have been those early black Singer cast iron jobs, but the work translates well to modern machines.

The book, instructions and so forth are techniques used by *VERY* skilled women (and perhaps a vew men), who do machine embroidery for French couture and other high end work.

This is all work done with straight stitches (zig-zag stiches on sewing machines are a recent invention *LOL*), and is really some of the most beautiful embroidery you have ever seen. It is what they call "free motion" or "free hand" embroidery.
 

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