As a quilter, I have many scissors of course but one pair stands out as my most cherished. Unlike the ratty “Red Handled Scissors” I detailed in my last post, these scissors are exquisite. They are a pair of impeccably sharp Gingher Dressmaker’s shears with fancy teal and yellow floral painted handles. When I have those scissors in my hand, I can do anything but when they are lost, I’m a mess. All productivity screeches to a halt. Logically, I realize the most sensible thing to do in the case of their inexplicable absence is to make a modest effort to find them, and if I can’t, just grab the next available scissors knowing that the good ones will turn up. If only it were that easy. When my good scissors are missing, I just can’t do anything until they are found. It’s like they are some kind of magic charm that ensures my project will turn out beautiful. The last time I lost them, I tore the house apart looking for them. I even checked the most unlikely places, like the refrigerator, logically because I’d once left the TV remote in the fridge while going for a snack.
My husband has a long-standing explanation for a situation like this. He quips the lost item is temporarily in another dimension, and I simply have to wait for Other Jen to stop using it. Have you ever opened a drawer, looked for something, not found it, closed the drawer only to open it again 30 seconds later and find it? Well, that is the Other You using the object in another dimension. You simply must wait for Other You to finished using it. Other Jen did eventually finish using the good scissors and was kind enough to put them back in a not totally obvious place but one that would delight me when I did find them: under a stack of fabric, right on the cutting table. Being happily reunited with my scissors (again) always reminds me of a Peanuts cartoon from years ago where Snoopy muses something along the lines of “Tidy people will never know the joy of finding something thought irretrievably lost”.
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Category Archives: scissors
Mom’s Scissors
When I was a kid, we only had two pairs of scissors in the entire house. One was a beat-up pair in the junk drawer. At some point, they must have been finished in red paint. Even though only a few tiny specks of red paint remained by the time I ever used them, they were universally referred to as “the red handled scissors”. The other pair was a glistening silver pair of Wiss dress maker shears. These lived in my mom’s sewing stuff. I’m not really sure where, because she guarded them like a dragon protecting its castle.
The Red Handled scissors cut everything: paper, string, tape, wire, brake line, chicken bones…. you name it and the Red Handles scissors were on the job. However, when it came to fabric, they were thoroughly inadequate for the job. For those special occasions, you had to ask Mom for the Silver Scissors. I don’t know where she kept them, but they’d miraculously appear under the strict provision that they be returned immediately after their use.
The Silver Scissors were always impeccably sharp, shiny, and flawless. I know she had them professionally sharpened from time to time because I remember as a child going someplace to pick them up. In what seemed like some kind of clandestine transaction, we would go someplace that had fabric. The clerk would slide them across the counter, wrapped in some brown paper and my mother would in turn slip him some money with a little nod. Maybe the clerk was sharpening scissors on the side, I don’t know, but I remember the Silver Scissors being even more sharp and perfect after they got back from their little spa vacation.
When I became an adult, I really had to be in awe of my mother’s scissors-management. At any given time, I must own 4 or 5 pair of “good scissors”, none of which I can ever find, and the Junk Drawer scissors apparently only live in the ether. It is now a solid fifty years since I first met the Silver Scissors. I would be willing to bet my life that my mother still has them lovingly stashed somewhere. You would think I should have learned from her after all these years, but I still can’t find my good scissors.
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The Worst Day Quilting
The worst day quilting is still better than the best day working, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a pretty bad day quilting! We asked our readers “What was your worst day quilting ever?” and got some pretty “bad” responses. Here are some of the worst:
- Sewing in a block upside down and not noticing it until after it was quilted.
- Miscalculating the yardage needed and running out of an irreplaceable vintage fabric.
- Spilling a glass of red wine on a baby quilt top the night before the shower.
- Finding out your husband used your good quilting scissors to cut wire… as evident by all the mysterious notches in your cuts.
- Sewing an applique block to your pant leg.
- Deciding to pre-wash your fabrics and finding out that one of them wasn’t color fast.
- Discovering the hard way that the cat got accidentally shut in the closet and then relieved himself on an unfinished, folded quilt top.
- Investing untold hours into a Dresden Plate baby quilt with scalloped edges for a family member only to be told by the recipient “This is lovely, but I already got a quilt for the baby… at Target”.
Your well-meaning husband mistook a bag of quilt tops waiting for the long armer for a clothing bag destined for the donation bin.
- And, finally, the winner of the Worst day Quilting was hands down (no pun intended): Cutting the tip of your finger off with a rotary cutter. Don’t worry, this fearless quilter went straight to the ER and her steadfast dedication to quilting was unharmed.
Quilting Scissors and Burritos Don’t Mix
Every quilter knows you don’t use good quilting scissors to cut paper. If only their family members knew that as well. We asked our By the Yard® comics readers what was the worst abuse of their sewing scissors and here are some of the best (worst?) responses:
• Paper, of course. How many times do we have to say it?
• Wrapping Paper – Here is a tip: This still counts as paper. The word “paper” is in the name!
• Packages – Not only is this a violation of the “no paper” rule, but once you get packing tape involved, now we are talking about the blades getting all gummy, too!
• Duct Tape – Even more sticky! Try using your teeth instead.
• Roof Flashing – In a way, I’m impressed that is worked, but the blades will never be the same.
• Wire – I have to admit, as a kid I was guilty of this one myself. Sorry, Mom!
• Tortillas – OK, I get it. They are flat and kind of floppy like fabric, but still!
• The tip off a Tube of Caulking – Home improvement warriors everywhere, take note.
• Laundry Soap Jug – Yes, that DIY birdfeeder you saw on Pinterest is super cool, and I know my sewing scissors are “really sharp”, but still – No.
• Toenails – That’s just gross.
• And finally, the winner has to be… Raw Chicken! Even if I left my scissors in the kitchen (I probably set them down there so I could go handle some family “emergency” like re-booting the Wi-Fi…), that does not make them “kitchen scissors”.
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Not Those Scissors
My family is always taking my scissors. It’s bad enough that they take them, but then what they use them for is even worse. My poor scissors have been used for everything from cutting tortillas (thanks, kids!) to roof flashing. Trying to keep the family from using your good scissors is a true exercise in futility.
Recently, I saw an ostensibly clever product for sale in a quilting magazine. It was a set of rubbery silicone tags (like those “bracelets for a cause” that everyone wears) with the “appropriate” use printed on them along with a corresponding icon. One was for paper, one for thread and another for fabric. Although adorable, I think this product will totally miss its mark because the very concept of the product insinuates that the offender does not know that they are using the scissors for the wrong purpose. The problem is that, to the uninitiated, there are no special purpose scissors. To non-quilters, scissors are scissors. They cut. They make one piece into two pieces. Any scissors can be used to bifurcate any thing.
You can try these cute little tags if you want but I think the only real way to keep your quilting scissors from being used to prepare tonight’s dinner or repair the roof is to hide them. Hide them, and just to be really safe, sprinkle a dozen or so cheap “decoy” scissors all over the house. You know, the kind you get for a dollar at the office supply store at back-to-school time. Sure, they won’t cut fabric or even paper worth a darn, but you know your family is just going to use them to cut wire anyway.
Life or Death
