Everyone loves an unsung hero.
Think about it.
Charlie Brown. Charlie
Chaplin. Cinderella.
Those unsung heroes are quiet individuals that live their
lives from day to day, not expecting anything great. But when the time comes and you need someone with
a backbone, courage, wit, and nerve – they’re there. So I would like to bring to your attention
some of the most unsung heroes of the quilt room:
Scissors.
That’s right friends and neighbors…I give you scissors.
Seriously. Think
about it. When I go to a big quilt show
(or a little quilt show for that matter) with my quilting sisters to shop and
see quilts, how many booths do you see that feature scissors? For that matter, when everyone gets back in
the car/van/bus and starts telling about what they’ve purchased, how many times
do scissors get mentioned?
Very few.
We quilters can be all about the “flash and cash.” The newest ergonomic rotary cutters, long-arm
quilting machines, quilting software, and every shade of every color of fabric
under the sun – they all fill our bags and empty our wallets quickly. However, the right kind of scissors is one of
the backbones of our quilting rooms and can make life much better.
Long ago, back in the late seventies and early eighties, the
rotary cutter didn’t exist. We cut
everything with templates and a good pair of scissors. Now we rarely use templates and even when we
do, we tend to still use a rotary cutter to cut them out. However, with the rise of using stamps for
cutting shapes for piecing (thank you Cindy Blackberg!), having the right kind
scissors for the job is once again becoming a necessity and not an option.
First of all, every sewing room needs to have at least two
pairs of scissors: one pair for cutting
paper and one pair for cutting fabric.
The paper scissors can be picked up anywhere – grocery store, dollar
store, office supply store – it doesn’t matter.
Don’t put a great deal of money in these, because when they dull, it’s
far more inexpensive to toss them and just buy another pair.
Paper Scissors
But the pair of scissors for fabric? That’s another story. Use them only for cutting fabric and plan to
invest some money in them. And if you
have a significant other or kids in the house that tend to grab your fabric
scissors, you may seriously want to consider hiding them or padlocking the
handles.
That'll teach 'em to touch my fabric scissors....
There are two major brands of fabric scissors on the
market: Gingher and Fiskars. Both brands are owned by the same
company. I love both kinds and really
can’t tell the difference between them, but I have quilting buddies who have
definite opinions on each brand.
Fiskars Fabric Scissors
Gingher Fabric Scissors
My
advice to you is to purchase a pair of 6-inch to 9-inch scissors for general
fabric-cutting use. Go to a store that
will allow you to handle the scissors before purchasing. Open and close them. Make sure they feel good in your hands. Decide if you want shears or scissors. Shears have more of a “crook” in the blades
so that lower blade will stay close to the cutting surface. The handles also have pronounced areas for
the thumb and fingers. Scissors have
straight blades and no differentiating handles.
And by all means, if you’re left handed, purchase left-handed scissors
or shears.
These options are important, because comfort is a
priority. I have carpel tunnel in my
right hand and fibromyalgia. My scissors
have to feel comfortable and be sturdy, but not too heavy. When you’re “test driving” them in the store,
keep in mind that you may use these scissors for long stretches of time. Make sure they fit well. My favorite scissors are titanium-coated
blades. They stay sharp longer and cut
through cotton, wool, or flannel like butter.
If you quilt long enough, you’re going to learn that there
is a new tool for almost every technique.
We have specialized rulers, specialized needles, and specialized thread. Scissors are no different.
For those of us that love to applique, there are two types
of scissors you may want to add to your collection. First are the knife-edge applique scissors.
Knife-Edge Scissors..aka as Duckbilled, Lace, and Applique Scissors
A long time ago when I taught French heirloom sewing, these
were called lace scissors because we used them to cut away the batiste fabric
from behind the lace. Today those of us
who applique have found that these scissors are wonderful for cutting the
fabric out from behind applique pieces.
They are also great to have for grading your fabric if you have to press
towards the lighter fabric instead of the dark.
The grading will keep the darker fabric from shadowing your lighter
material.
The next kind of scissors you may want to keep in your
applique bag are the ones designed by Karen Kay Buckley.
Karen Kay Buckley's Perfect Scissors
They come in a variety of blade lengths and
have tiny serrated teeth along those blades.
When appliqueing with cotton or flannels, fraying is always an issue. Those tiny serrated teeth help prevent some
of that fraying, as well as make cutting tiny shapes a little easier because
the blade grip the fabric instead of pushing it. Think of them as the pinking shears for
quilting.
Close up of the blades...can you see the tiny teeth?
Snips are a different kind of scissors for quilters. A small pair of snips fit easily into a
sewing kit and are used to snip threads.
Some snips come with lanyards so they can be worn around the neck for
easy access.
Thread Snips
There is a specialized kind of
snips called Heritage Rag Quilting Snips and if you enjoy making rag quilts,
they are well-worth the investment.
You can make perpendicular clips into the seams of a rag quilt
without special scissors, but once you've used these special cutters you'll
never go back to regular shears. I have a couple of brands of rag quilt
scissors, but the Heritage snips are my favorites. Fingers rest above the
handles instead of being slipped into handle-holes that can cause blisters
after lots of cuts (you'll make snips every 1/4" along every seam). The
spring action of the handles means they'll pop right back into place for the next
cut, with no effort from you. The rounded tips of these scissors create a bit
of buffer at their ends, just enough to help keep me from cutting too deeply into
a seam allowance.
Besides
the snips, a small pair of embroidery scissors is always a nice item to have in
your quilting room. They can be used to
cut fabric or thread, but the tips are pointed and sharp.
Embroidery Scissors
If you’re not careful, you can put a hole in
your fabric where’s not supposed to be one!
If I’m traveling by car and am taking my applique with me, this is the
pair of scissors that generally gets packed because it does more than one job
and takes up the least amount of space.
Which
brings me to another point, what if you’re traveling by airplane? If you’re a die-hard quilter, you know that
fabric and thread and scissors are going with you by hook or crook. And security in airports generally frowns
upon sharp, pointy items as much as it frowns upon bottles that hold more than
two ounces of liquid. Gingher realized
this and came up with these:
Round-Tipped Scissors
These
are four-inch scissors with round-tipped blades. They honestly look like the scissors we used
in elementary school, with one exception – they are extremely sharp. While the rounded ends mean you can toss them
in your purse and nothing will get punctured; security will wave you through at
the airport; and you can clip seams with accuracy; it does not mean you’ve
sacrificed any blade quality.
All
of these scissors have one thing in common:
They are an investment. While not
extremely expensive (you’re going to pay in the price range of $20 for a good
pair of 9-inch fabric scissors vs. the $1 pair of paper scissors you pick up at
the dollar store), you want to make them last as long as you can. So treat them well.
1.
When traveling with your scissors, put the
blades in a sheath. Some scissors come
with a sheath. If yours didn’t, simply
twist a rubber band around them until snug but not tight. This protects the blades and anything you
toss in with the scissors.
2.
Avoid
dropping them. They will go “off
balance” at the pivot point of the blades.
3.
Have
them sharpened regularly. I’m a little
skeptical about the sharpening tools that are sold in fabric stores. I’ve never had the luck with them that I’ve
had with a person who knows what they’re doing when they’re sharpening
scissors. And if the scissors have
serrated blades, be sure to tell the sharpener.
4.
Wipe
the blades down after you’re through with a project. The fibers from the fabric can dull the
blades. Wiping them down will prolong
the times between sharpening.
Celebrate the
unsung heroes of your quilting room – the scissors! May their blades always be sharp and may they
keep their rightful place beside your trusty rotary cutter. Treat them well and use them often.
Love and
Stitches,
Sherri
