The Cutting Edge

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