Love and Scissors.

We feel so lucky to have such a lovely bunch of teachers and friends at MD. Have a look at this kind post from Autumn; she says the nicest things about us! And here is another nice blurb in the Neighborhood Notes blog (scroll down to the NE section). All these words of love and appreciation are so great to hear after months of work opening the store. Not that it was bad, just long days, lots of babysitters, less time with family, and tons of problem solving. We are pleased with the results and so glad you all seem to be as well.

What an amazing feeling when people are using the space and taking classes at MD and learning so much. It is wonderful to have access to so many high quality sewing tools, machines, and equipment; and best of all to be able to share it. Today in the kids pants class, I must have showed my students the purpose of four different kinds of scissors and why I love them. They each made the job of cutting much easier.

Here is the lowdown on what we used in class yesterday. We were making lined pockets.

Sharp 8″ dressmaker sheers from Gingher. If you have never used a pair of these scissors, that is reason enough to come to MD. We provide them in our tool kits for use when in class as well as drop-in sewing. They are sharp, cut like butter, and are a dream to use.

6″ dressmaker sheers from Gingher. Wonderful for smaller cutting work. Today, we were cutting pockets on kids pants and I noticed a student struggling to come around the small curves, so I passed her a pair. They are just like the bigger version, all lovely and buttery, but smaller and easier to turn with.

Pinking Shears. We have the Cushion Soft Mundial ones in pink and they are dreamy for trimming curves. I find that if instead of clipping all those little clips, I just pink close to the edge of the stitching line, I don’t need to notch. Fun. Fast. Easy.

Applique sicssors from Gingher. These have one pointy blade and one funny little curved blade. They are mysterious on the shelf, but priceless when grading seams while you sew. Priceless. The curved edge insures you don’t cut through your bottom seam allowance and the sharp blades make precise snipping easy as can be. Again, we used them today to grade the seam on a pocket.

Thread snips. I am currently loving the Gingher ones with the cover. They are light-weight, have a cover, and can trim and snip all those little threads from bobbin tails to serger chains. Snip snip snip.

I have loved notions for a good long time. I was a notions sales rep for a wholesale distributor for 7 years, Michelle still is. I got a lot of good tools out of that job, and find that there are still a precious handful that I continue to pick up over and over again as I sew. I am not so much into useless extra gadgets, just the right tool for the job. You may notice that while we carry some tools at MD, we do not offer every brand and every style of pin, for example. Just one, good, sharp, straight, glass head pin. That is all. With cutting tools, while we have a nice variety of types, we really have chosen our favorites and the most useful in our experience.

Happy cutting Love.