Sharp Scissors

My mother sewed. She sewed a lot. The month before school started she would sew all our school cloths on her little black singer sewing machine. She had six kiddos and sewed for every one of us, including herself, dad and our dolls. When I was a senior in high school a friend told me she and our friends had been envious of my cloths and my Barbie doll's cloths too. That is not really too surprising though because mom was quite the perfectionist and everything we wore was an original. 

Mom laid down the law when it came to her tools though. We were not to touch her dressmaker scissors. When I started sewing she insisted that I purchase the best pair of scissors I could afford. I still have them and they hold on to a sharp edge for a long time. I had not used them in some time and pulled them out to use today. I do not remember when I last had them sharpened, but they are much sharper than my less expensive scissors that I use as decoys. 

Dressmaker scissors are flat, with the handles off to an angle. This keeps your fabric as flat as possible so you get an accurate cut. Precision matters when it comes to fit. Sharp matters too, as it makes the job easier.  

Here are my favorite dressmaker scissors

• Top left - the decoy pair. I got these from a SewFro or Clothworld promotion. They are very inexpensive but do a good job if they are sharp. I use them more to cut the pattern tissue than actual fabric cutting. If someone finds them I am not going to worry about it. 
• The orange handle ones on the top right are Fiskars. They are relatively inexpensive but are easy to resharpen with the Fiskars sharpening tool. I do not want someone to use these for anything else, but I can resharpen if they do. 
• The ones on the bottom left are the Farr scissors I purchased when I started sewing. I will not mention exactly how long that has been, but I think the company that made them has gone out of business.
• The last pair is a set of Gingher scissors. 

I have the Farr and the Gingher sets professionally sharpened when needed and without a doubt, they will outlast me.