The Bleeding Edge: Scissors 101

There is no more important tool in a sewing basket than a fine pair of shears. You can find thread anywhere, or settle for a ball of twine. You can hand-sew the rest of your life without a machine. But you CANNOT cut cloth— or slash to a perfect point— with a butter knife, or your greasy thumbs.

One perfect pair of scissors is not enough, either— you need a brood. Cost is beside the point when it comes to shears. Sell plasma if you need to. If you can’t cut out a design to your satisfaction, your sewing career is screwed. Big, little, serrated, rotary, pinking—even the Swiss Army should be part of your repertoire.

I’m not kidding about the last item. The two most important family firms in Switzerland—in my estimation— are Bernina and Wenger, and this past year they made a 111th Anniversary Jubilee tool, which they call a “Lady’s Knife.”

Ha! It’s a complete sewing kit in a pocket-knife format, with seventeen different tools including a special rotary knife, awl, and hem-measure. This sucker will never get past airport security, and yet every passenger should be carrying one. The tools it employs could get you out of any scrape imaginable.

Next, you must cultivate a sharpener. Like a lover. This is the person who keeps your shears braced for a lifetime. See him often. Dedicate your life to him. Are there “lady” sharpeners who live in rolling caravans with their tools?  I’d love to meet one.

Decades from now, sewing and crafts people will be talking about the Great Scissors Panic of ‘06. Gingher, the “premier maker of fine shears,” was acquired  in 2005 by Fiskars, who makes those lightweight steel choppers you see in every office supply store.  Their long shears made a great cheap sewing scissors as long as you replaced them every year.

However, within a year, quality of both brands’ scissors plummeted. Some blamed “Mexico” for the disaster, when they saw the country’s name forged on the new poor product. Gingher hasn’t used a Mexican forge before, but to blame the country’s character is ignorant, and insulting. Gingher has been quite capable of setting standards and hiring wonderful people, no matter what country they’ve done business in.

Whatever it was, buyers who thought they were getting the occasional odd lemon realized that every batch was turning bad.

Within weeks, dressmakers were in a panic to find the “old” Ginghers forged in Germany, Brazil, or Italy.  I locked my drawers, and tied my cherished Knife Edge Tailor's Point Scissors around my neck.

What’s an effective scissors test?  Try this: Take four layers of cloth, and make a cut. It should be clean, and slash straight through to the very tips of the blades. Think: surgical. They should fit comfortably and light enough in your hand that you could cut out Cinderella’s ballgown without getting a cramp. They should cut leather easily. A lock-nut assembly for easy readjustment of tension would be essential.
And yeah, they should look nice.

Whether you’re a “lady,” or a foul-mouthed bricoleur, you’ll crave a pair of blades that make you sing while you slice. The pains of global capitalism may be nipping at the heels of good craftsmanship, but somewhere out there, there’s a gleaming pair with your name on it.

Photo: Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder in the good old day of Edward Scissorhands. This story first appeared in Craft 02: Creative Clones.

Comments

[c4bl3fl4m3]

Is there something wrong with me that this article (at least the part about the effective scissors test) gets me off on my blade kink?

It's almost like it's pinup/softcore for blade fetishists. I can almost see the light gleaming off the blades as it cleanly cuts through fabric, the whole way to the tip of the blades. And the sound that the shears make with the cloth... oh. :-)

(Oh, and it takes me back to my childhood with my mother or grandmother as they/we worked with fabric. Oh, if only I had a really good pair of shears like that then. They had good ones, but not nearly THAT good.)

(Oh, and the Lady's Knife link is bad. I'm curious to see it, if you can find an updated link.)