My husband spends a lot of time in the garage restoring his antique car. That garage is full of every tool imaginable. Well, my sewing room is just the same. I love tools and gadgets! I comb through quilting catalogs and go to sewing groups at local stores where I learn all about the latest and greatest must have tools. I'll talk about my favorites.
First and foremost is a rotary cutter and cutting mat. I have had them for years but when I was making clothes they weren't really practical for cutting out patterns. Once I got into quilting and smaller projects I started using them more and more. I have 4 cutting mats of varying sizes and numerous cutters since it is usually easier for me to buy a new one than to sharpen the old one. I guess I need to invest in a rotary blade sharpener. Here is a picture of one of my smaller mats. I have a really large one on my cutting counter. I use them all.
Next are my quilting gloves. They are really stretchy and have rubberized fingertips. I would never be able to "free motion quilt" without them. When you sew the "feed dogs" under the machine and the pressure foot pull the fabric through the machine. When you "free motion" you drop the feed dogs and use a pressure foot that doesn't actually touch the fabric. I am the one moving the fabric while the needle remains in the same place. The gloves help to push and pull the fabric creating the stitches. It is now one of my favorite things to do once I took a class and got over being intimidated by the process. I've only accidentally stitched the glove once!
Good scissors and a measuring device are a must. Normally I would say that a really good pair of large fabric scissors would be a good investment. For me I hardly ever use mine since I no longer sew clothes and use the rotary cutter. If you are making clothes, yes they are important. The duck bill scissors and nail scissors are great for applique. When doing that you have to cut away excess material while not cutting the fabric underneath. They are invaluable when doing applique work. The pink ones have real sharp points and are spring loaded. These are great for snipping thread ends real close to your work. The slide measure is great for almost anything and this one is also an aid in drawing circles.
Miscellaneous accessories are very useful. The metal measuring guage is really handy especially for 1/4 seams (commonly used in quilting). The little red clips are great when doing binding around a quilt and much better than pins. I buy a small package almost every time I am in a quilt store because one can never have too many of these. The curved safety pins are used when stacking quilt layers together so they don't move prior to quilting. I also like spray basting for stacking too. I do make mistakes so a good seam ripper is essential. This one happens to be handmade by the husband of a lady I know from a quilting club. The sassy scissors are just plain fun but also very sharp. And the sixth finger is one of my new favorite tools. It is great when feeding something small under the pressure foot and you need something to push with so you don't sew your finger.
I have a ton of embroidery thread spools and got real tired of loose thread hanging all over the place. These fun thread peels are great for taming all those loose ends. And the bobbin holders are also quite useful. I do try to keep it full of wound bobbins. I love the colors! The are sold by
http://smartneedle.com/product/peels-spool-huggers/.
Marking pens. I always thought that it was considered cheating if you marked a design on your fabric prior to free motion quilting. Not so according to the instructor I had. So a good marking pen that disappears is a must. This same instructor used Frixion pens and I fell in love with them! They come in a variety of colors and write like a gel pen. When you want to get rid of the marks you just have to hold a hot iron over the pen marks (without actually touching them) and you can literally watch them disappear.
My sewing table is chock full of all these tools but I use them every time I sew. Hopefully you have learned something.
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