I have been happily using my old Viking 905 serger that I got free with a promotion of the Viking D1. My dealer called me at home to inform I had forgotten my serger. I said what serger and went back to pick it up. It is not fancy, just 4 thread and no fancy computer board. I can do 2 or 3 thread surging with it and it has a free arm and a differential which you can use to make ruffles. I usually just use the 4 threads. Things I have done with it include surging around fabric to keep from fraying. Making two-layer fleece dog blankets just by cutting the flannel, drawing the rounded corners with a plate and flooring the pedal to metal. Yikes a dog blanket in about 10 minutes. I used it to shorten pants. Just mark the cutting line, the surging cuts off the excess fabric and finishes the edge at the same time, so just need to turn it up a bit and top stitch (work pants) oh, and you can make tubing with it by stitching a long length of surged thread and lying that inside the folded fabric to make the tube. You just pull on the surged thread to turn it right side out. I used to make simple pull over knit tops. Easy peasy with a serger, took about an hour and a half.