Sewing Supplies Fabric

sewing supplies fabric

The absolute minimum I’d send you home with is a decent pair of scissors (Fiskars are ok, and quite reasonable). a good seam ripper, some pins, a package of hand needles, and a tape measure.

When choosing scissors, the sort you want are the ones with the blades set at an angle to the fingerloops, like these:

http://www.fiskarscrafts.com/tools/t_no-10-office-shears.aspx

or http://www.fiskarscrafts.com/tools/t_no-8-softouch-scissors.aspx
and not the inline ones like these:

http://www.fiskarscrafts.com/tools/t_no-7-all-purpose-scissors.aspx

When you cut fabric, you keep the lower blade in contact with the table surface while cutting… and you can’t do that with the inline style scissors. Generally speaking, you also want the longest blade length you can handle comfortably — for me, it’s 12″, but for most women, 10 or 11″ is better, and 9 is fairly common. If you want better scissors than Fiskars, Gingher has its proponents, though I prefer Kai by far.

Seam rippers (aka frogstitchers — “rip it! rip it!”) are important tools, because you will be ripping a lot at first. The Clover ripper with the white handle is a pretty good one, imho, and far better than the blue handled Dritz jobbies, which often have snaggly spots.http://www.patchworksewingbasket.com/prod01.htm

Pins: “silk pins” are traditional, and will work for almost any fabric. However, pins with ball heads and a magnet or magnetic pin dish are easier to pick up:

http://thequilter.blogspot.com/2006/09/pincushions-quilt.html

(my pins usually live in a Corelle bowl with a magnet out of a disk drive on the underside of the bowl, fwiw.) Pins come with plastic or glass heads — the glass headed pins are more expensive and can be ironed over, the plastic ones are cheaper and I don’t feel at all bad about chucking them at the wastebasket when they develop snaggly tips). Mostly what I use for regular sewing are the yellow-headed plastic quilt pins you can find in any fabric store or Walmart. I save my good IBC silk pins for fine work.

Tape measure: I prefer the “quilter’s tape measures” that are 120″ on one side, equivalent metric on the other. Whatever you get, make sure it won’t stretch… fiberglas is good, vinyl is ok.

Hand needles: I suggest a package of “embroidery” or “crewel” needles in assorted sizes. Less than $1. Same size as “betweens”, but bigger eyes make them easier to thread.

Nice to have: tailor’s chalk for marking. I’d suggest either
in this form:http://missourifamilies.org/learningopps/learnmaterial/tools/chalk.htm Or you could consider a Chakoner (my favorite — it dusts out fine chalk lines):
http://www.sewingplace.com/browseproducts/Chakoner-Chalk-Marker.HTML or a cake of bath soap that you’ve used down to the sliver stage, where it has sharp edges. In any case, don’t use pigmented markers till you’re a little more experienced.

Nice website to help you get started with notions:

http://missourifamilies.org/learningopps/learnmaterial/tools/index.htm

You’ll also need thread, sewing machine needles (size 80/12 universal points will do for most projects), and any notions required by the pattern, like elastic, buttons, zippers, etc.

I’d also like to see you have a roll of plain paper for cutting fabrics on (email me at kay @ fern.com and I’ll send you better instructions). I use an end roll from the local newspaper, which in most places is close to a lifetime supply, free to $5 in most parts of the US. Cutting fabrics on paper stabilizes the fabric and makes your cutting much more accurate, which makes the sewing much, much easier.

The other important thing to have is a good book or three. I strongly suggest you might want to head for your local library and check out the beginner’s books. The two commonly available ones I’d particularly suggest are the Reader’s Digest Sewing Book and Simplicity’s Simply the Best Sewing Book. If you were my student and you wanted to sew garments, the book I’d send you for is Connie Crawford’s Guide to Fashion Sewing — it’s industry methods adapted for home sewing machines, and it is *very* step by step and much more straightforward than typical home sewing instructions.

More helps here:http://www.tomfarrell.org/textiles/sewing/

http://besewstylish.taunton.com/n/blogs/blog.aspx?redirCnt=1&webtag=besewstylish

http://www.taunton.com/promotions/pages/nmt060_sewing_rev.asp

Whoops, nearly forgot: you’ll also need a decent iron and an ironing board or table. The Black and Decker Classic iron (about $25) is a pretty good budget choice.

Mighty Mendit $3.50 Mighty Mendit Is Not A Glue, But A Flexable Bonding Agent That Grabs, Adheres & Interlocks The Fibers Of Virtually Any Fabric For A Permanent Repair, Dries Crystal Clear & Safe For Most Surfaces & Many Fabrics, The Bond Will Remain Strong Even After 50 Washes, Whether Its Denim, Leather Or Lace You Can Use Mighty Mendit Any Time, Any Place….

Metro Cafe Coffee Mugs with Faces One Yard (0.9m) 10761-256 Retro $9.95 One Yard (0.9m), Metro Cafe Coffee Mugs with Faces, sold individually packaged…

Bucilla 86194 Holiday Cornucopia Stamped Cross Stitch Tablecloth, 60-Inch by 90-Inch $26.38 Celebrate special occasions with family dinners over the Holiday Cornucopia Collection of hand-made table coordinates. This kit contains washable white poly/cotton pre-finished fabric with the design pre-printed in wash away ink, DMC floss requirements and easy to follow instructions. Finished size: 60″ x 90″. Design: Holiday Cornucopia. Made in USA/Imported….

Aunt Martha’s Iron On Transfer Patterns for Stitching, Embroidery or Fabric Painting, Patterns for Tea Towels/Kitchen Decor, Set of 5 $1.50 Insert bills this as “the world’s first ever Queen shaped picture CD featuring a Brian May interview.”…