Wednesday, December 2, 2009

my favorite sewing tools


Every once in a while, someone asks me about sewing notions for a new sewer, so I thought I'd share my favorites.

1. magnetic pin cushion with small binder clips

2. magnetic pin cushion with extra long quilting pins

3. spool of craft and button thread with sewing needle (on #2 pin cushion)

4. giant safety pin for pulling elastic through casings (on #2 pin cushion)

5. huge needle for pulling serged ends back in to seams (on #2 pin cushion)

6. ruler

7. aluminum point turner, which is my own design, custom made by my dad, b/c I kept breaking the tiny bamboo and plastic ones or poking through the fabric... let me know if you are interested, since I'm considering adding these to my etsy site.

8. seam ripper (it's new and sharp!). The old one broke when I tried to pick stitches out by holding it sideways. Hmm, I see a bit of theme here...

9. dressmaker shears - gingher and mundial are made by the same company and are my favorites. I had a featherweight ginger that was plastic with metal blades, and, you guessed it, I broke that too, by cutting too many layers of fabric at once.

10. tiny scissors for trimming threads

11. long handled tweezer (not pictured, but essential if you have a serger)

12. compressed air (also not pictured). After many, many machine repairs, I learned that dust is your sewing machine's enemy! and your serger's arch enemy! So, keep them clean and they will work longer.

That's about it for tools that I can think of right now. The other thing you need to know is this sage advice from my gram, whom I loved dearly:

"You might as well get used to pulling out stitches, because you are going to do it a lot. You're going to need to learn to be patient."

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