Specialty Outdoors

My Favorite Tools... other than my machines

Cutting tools: I cannot emphasize enough the importance of keeping these sharp and using them for fabric only. No paper, food, metal, cardboard, tape... Keep your shears under lock and key if you have to. A good quality shear will keep it's edge much longer and cut much better than the $3.99 ones you get at the office supply. At the top you see a "Olfa" brand rotary cutter and a clear rules made especially for rotary cutters. This is like a rolling razor, excellent for accurate cutting. Use a special cutting mat underneath it, I have a table size on pictured here. Right below that are 10" & 8" dressmaker shears. The big ones are for heavy fabrics, the smaller ones are general use. Then, I like the tiny embroidery scissors for precision snipping.

These are my favorite little tools. From L to R we have a 6" adjustable seam guage, a flat tweezers, sewing awl, and various marking pencils. The seam gauge, held in the hand as you sew a hem is very handy to make sure your fold is even. I use the tweezers for pulling out threads when I have to rip something out. The sewing awl is a great little pokey thing, you can use it to position things very close to the presser foot where you woudn't want your fingers. Get marking pencils at the art supply. They are white charcoal, Berol Verithin, Faber Castel and Stabilo, excellent for use on coated fabrics. I find that if a pencil isn't marking well, lick the end of it.

Tool of destruction!! Forget a seam ripper, use a single edge razor, very carefully. Work away from yourself. I find this work much better with much less fabric destruction than a seam ripper. Also, because they are so cheap ( 100/$6) don't feel guilty about getting a fresh one out of the box. A holder is 99 cents at Home Depot.

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