Sarah's Simple Sewing Secrets

Well, today I thought I'd give a basic rundown of what I consider the most important sewing tool after needle and thread





Pinking Shears.

I don't have a surger and have never needed one, because these are much cheaper and work almost as well.

See, when you cut fabric, that raw edge will come unraveled, some fabrics worse than others. This happens especially in the washing machine. You have to do something to those edges on your clothes or they will unravel all the way up to the seam and then all your seams will pull out and you'll have no fabric left to fix em with.

If you look at your store bought clothes you will notice sewing that goes over the raw edges this is called surging and is best done with a special sewing maching called a surger. However, if you noticed the price on that link, that lovely little machine's regular price is $500.00, which is not in my budget.


You can reach the same goal by buying a pair of pinking shears, which I saw at WalMart for about $30 last month. Here's how they work. Pinking shears are heavy scissors with teeth that cut in a zigzag line.








I got these at a fabric store like Hancock. I asked the people at Michael's or MJDesigns for pinking shears and they led me to the scrapbook aisle. Don't waste your time or money. The light weight scissors they have for scrapbook will do nothing to fabric. Literally, nothing. I wouldn't buy a pair of pinking shears that weighed less than 2 pounds. The weight of the shears helps them cut a clean zigzag line. Otherwise the fabric will fold between the teeth and not cut.

So, why you ask do you need a zigzag line?? This controls the unraveling issue. Even after many washings your fabric will only unravel to the inner edge of the zigzag and stop.



This dress was made 3 years ago and you can see how much has unraveled in that time.

Now, some people sew a seam then pink it. I usually don't, I wait till I have the whole garmet made, and tried on then I'll go back and pink the edges of all seams. That way if I have to redo any of the seams I still have my original cut lines and notches to go by.

We'lltalk about notches another week :-)

happy sewing this week friends!