Sewing Scissors

Today we are going to talk about sewing scissors! I think that having the right tool for the job is really important. It can mean the difference between enjoying something and getting completely frustrated with it and never wanting to do it again!

Dressmaker's Shears

These 8" shears have a bent handle which allows the lower blade to stay flat on a cutting surface. They're most commonly used for cutting out fabric and patterns, but PLEASE for the love of everything holy don't use the same pair of scissors to cut your patterns and your fabric. I have a similarly shaped orange handled pair of Fiskars for cutting pattern paper. If I'm being honest, my good shears are probably my least used pair of scissors because I prefer to use a rotary cutter and mat for cutting out. When I first moved here I was stuck without them and missed them, so they do have their uses.

Tailor Points

These little guys are about 5" long and are a pretty versatile. They are nice and sharp so you can cut through several layers, and they're smaller than the shears which makes them more useful and less unruly for trimming and clipping seams. It also works well for buttonholes (though if you're as completely clumsy as me you might just want to use a seam ripper for that).

Applique (Pelican) Scissors

You can probably see why these are sometimes called Pelican-bill scissors. Strictly speaking, these aren't a MUST HAVE for your sewing box, but they are incredibly useful for appliqué and grading seams. The wide bill of the scissors slides along the layer(s) below and holds it down so it doesn't get snipped. Plus, everytime you look in your scissor drawer you can giggle a little since they're so funny looking.

Thread Nippers (Snips)

The next funny looking pair of scissors are my thread nippers. When I was growing up I felt like these were the most useless scissors my mother owned. They were awkward and as far as I could tell the tailor points were much more useful for trimming threads. Until... I realized... that I'd NEVER actually used them right! My mom showed me how they were supposed to be held and I was a convert!

Don't put your thumb through the loop. They're designed to put your middle finger through the loop but I have giganto hands and find it slightly more comfy to put my ring finger in the loop. Then put the blades between your thumb and index finger and snip away. Complete time saver, and if you have a billion threads to clip at the end of a long project your hands will likely thank you later (at least mine do... I find the snips to be easier on my hands than normal scissors for a lot of really little snips).

Embroidery Scissors

Embroider scissors are pretty self explanatory I would guess. They're very sharp and pointy so you can trim up close with great accuracy. Gingher advertises their brand as being built more strongly so you can also snip thicker yarns and trim up fabrics.

Rag Snips

Have you ever made a rag quilt and then wanted to cut off your hands because they were so cramped from sniping a thousand billion tiny little snips into the seams? Well, this solves that problem. They're spring loaded and the blades are just the right size for snipping into the quilt seams. My grandpa discovered that tin snips will also work marvelously for this purpose!


You might notice that I haven't included pinking shears in this list. I don't own pinking shears because I don't find them to actually be all that useful. I have a pinking blade for my rotary cutter that I use if I need to pink something. There are also scissors specifically made for cutting buttonholes but I don't find myself making so many buttonholes that I need them.

Can you think of any others I may have missed?

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