What is the best serger for beginners?
That depends on what you will be sewing and how much sewing you will be doing. The best advice I can give is do not be in a hurry to buy. Take your time to do some research on what the sergers can do and their prices and then make an informed purchase. Actually, if your local community college offers a serger class, enroll in that class to learn how sergers work and what a serger can do before you buy one. A serger is a good piece of equipment and it can speed up your sewing but it will not replace your regular sewing machine.
Where to buy?
You can buy a serger from a dealer, online or from Walmart, Costco, Sears... When buying from a dealer beware that usually they have a no return, no refund policy. Usually, the brands you will find in a dealer are not available online, because many manufacturers do not allow dealers to sell online or even provide prices by phone. Some dealers sometimes have used sewing machines/sergers for sale in their stores. But it might be cheaper buying a new serger online than buying a used one from a dealer. If you buy from a department store or online their prices are more affordable and the good thing is that if you are not satisfied you can return it. The other good thing is that you will feel no pressure to buy anything.
What serger/overlock to buy?
There are a lot of different manufacturers and brands and their price differences are very big. When considering what serger to buy pay attention to their features. The most common type of sergers are the 4-thread ones. There are also 5-thread sergers.The 5-thread ones may or may not include coverstitch. If they include the coverstitch the price will be much higher than a 5-thread without the coverstitch. The difference between the 4-thread and the 5-thread without coverstitch is that the 5-thread one will finish the edge and it will serge a chain stitch at the same time. You can find this chain stitch in your ready-to-wear clothes. But most people will buy a 4-thread and finish their garment in the regular sewing machine, because the 4-thread ones are cheaper. In any case, check the manufacturers website to find out how many stitches the serger you are interested in can do. Also, if you want to do coverstitch you may also consider on buying a coverstitch only machine, instead of buying it combined with a 5-thread serger. You can have a coverstitch only machine ready to sew at any time, whereas if you buy a 5-thread with coverstitch you might have to do change the throat plate.
Threading
When you are working with 4 or 5 threads at the same time, threading will take more time than threading a regular sewing machine. The Babylock is currently very popular because threading it is very easy. They use a mechanism that make threading a breeze. Although this feature is great, you also pay a lot for it. When I bought my serger, I could not find a new Babylock for less than $1000 (of course this price can vary, but where I live the eclipse was about this price). All the other machines will have to be threaded in a more conventional way, but threading them is now easier than a few years ago. They usually come threaded and it is not that hard to learn how to thread them. It just requires a little more patience. But again this is a personal choice.
Brands
The cheapest serger is the Brother 1034D. This is a low end machine and you can read a lot of reviews about it at Amazon.com. I bought one, and for the price and for a beginner actually it was not that bad. It sews well, it comes with different feet, instructional dvds on how to thread it and another one on creative techniques. It is a bit noisy though, but if you find you do not like it, you can return it very easily. You can also find a Singer serger for less than $200. But again I would suggest that you read the reviews from amazom.com or any other site. At my local community college, the one that students get to use is the Juki. As you can imagine these machines have a lot of use, and they do a good job. They are slightly more expensive than the Brother, but you can also read a lot of reviews at amazon.com website and even buy it from them. Bernina also has sergers that are very similar to Juki (the only difference is the tension levers). But the Bernina ones are sold only in authorized dealers, and because of this they will be much more expensive than the Juki. There are also Janome, Huskvarna Viking...
Another feature to consider when buying a serger is where the knobs are located. Some are easy to locate and easy to adjust. Others not really. The stitch length adjustment knob on the Bernina 700D is not that easy to adjust. But the same knob on the 800DL is easy to see and adjust.
I suggest you visit several manufacturers websites and check the overlok serger features first, and compare the different brands before you even go to a dealer or store. Also, you can find useful information on Threads magazine about sergers, what they can do, etc. (http://www.threadsmagazine.com/item/25098/which-serger-stitch-when)
