How to Remove Serger Stitches

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Have you ever wondered how to remove serger stitches? Better yet, have you ever wanted to find the most efficient way for removing serger stitches without damaging the fabric? Well, I’ve got a treat for you.

The best way to remove serger stitches is to use…

…a pet hair trimmer or an electric stitch remover. Before you say, “NO.” Hear me out. A pet hair trimmer is designed for removing hair from pets without causing injury. It is gentle enough to not cause injury to skin, but sharp enough to remove hair.



The pet hair trimmer is ideal for removing serger threads because it is sharp enough to remove thread but doesn’t have long enough teeth to cause serious damage to fabric.

2 Remove Serger Stitches

Set up

In order to use a pet hair trimmer for fabric, you must first remove the blade guard.

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The blade guard is designed for trimming the pets hair to a specific length. However, we don’t need this guard for our purposes.

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To remove your serger stitches,

…Lay the fabric flat. Then, run your pet hair trimmer blade over the serger stitches.

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This will trim away 90% of the threads without doing any damage to your fabric. You don’t need to press down hard. Just run it over the surface to snag the threads.

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Next???

This step is where you need to be extra careful! Part the fabric and pull gently. Many of the remaining stitches will pop loose on their own. Leftovers must be cut with the pet hair trimmer or a seam ripper. For this step, I generally use the pet hair trimmer on medium to heavy fabric and the seam ripper on lightweight fabric.

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The seam ripper is used on this step to make extra sure no fabric gets nicked in the process.  However, I often skip this extra precaution. Please use your own discretion with this!!!

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Finish Up

To finish, simply brush away the leftover threads! I used the included brush to remove the debris.

How much time does the process take?

When I removed serger stitches with this method, it took less than 15 minutes to take out side seams on an entire skirt. In the past, I would have spend an hour or more attempting to unpick serger stitches with my handy seam ripper.

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