My Favourite Sewing Tools

Do you have a favourite sewing tool? Something you use every time you sew or like to have on hand at your sewing machine?

There are some tools that live permanently in the pockets of my sewing machine mat. These are either used a lot or I like to have them on hand for when I need them for a moment.

1. Scissors – I have a pair of scissor that live beside my sewing machine – a small embroidery pair and a slightly larger pair that are good for clipping seams or ends of zippers.

2. Needle Book – I made my needle book a couple of years ago – and wrote the tutorial, of course. It has felt pages to hold a variety of needles, safety pins and sewing pins.

3. Spare Needles – I keep a bunch of spare needles for my machine on hand in sizes 70, 80 and 90. I also have some quilting, stretch and jeans needles. Plus I have spare embroidery needles in various sizes that I seem to have collected.

4. Marking Tools – I have a couple of chalk pencils for marking plus my favourite Chako Ace disappearing marking pen.

5. Clover Cutting Tool – The Clover cutting tool lives at my machine even though it is used mostly when I travel. It is a little round device with a hidden blade for cutting threads. I bought it when I couldn’t take scissors on planes for security reasons. Read more about it here.

6. Quick Unpick – Everyone makes mistakes so this unpicker gets a regular workout! I have a feeling it was a gift from my Mum when I left home and she gave me a kit of basic sewing bits and bobs. Also called a seam ripper.

7. Seam Presser – Another tool I love! This is used to press seams usually when I’m doing patchwork and can’t be bothered going to the iron. Read more about it here: Clover Finger Presser.

8. Measuring Tape – A flexible tailor’s tape that again was probably a gift from Mum. Mine has centimetres and inches which I find handy.

9. Thimbles – Every now and again I get this silly idea about hand quilting and these thimbles come out. I prefer the weird bendy one because it has a cut out at the back and my finger doesn’t get as sweaty using it. (I call the hand quilting silly because I inevitably decide it takes too long and go back to machine quilting!)

10. Clover Clips (and pegs) – I store my Clover Clips in a little zip lock bag in one of the pockets for when I am binding quilts, although I have used them in place of pins sometimes too. These were a fairly recent addition thanks to Sew Box Subscriptions. The pegs were what I used to use to hold my binding.

Update:

I recently added another tool to my collection:

11. Long Sewing Machine Tweezers – these long tweezers have a little bend at the tip and are great for threading the needle of my machine.

What do you keep at your sewing machine all the time?

Need Christmas gifts for a friend who sews? Find my favourite tools on Amazon:

Sew a mat with a pocket to keep all your tools handy with this tutorial: